
SANTA BARBARA 



TOWN AND COUNTY 



CONTAINING INFORMATION ON 'MATTERS OF INTEREST 
TO TOURISTS, NEW SETTLERS, INVALIDS, ETC. 



Engraved Expressly for this Work. 



ftv B. JV\ WOOD. 



SANTA BARBARA, CAL.: 

WOOD k SEFTON, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, 



1872. 



PRICE, 50 CENTS. 



THE $0* k MRB AU otoex. 



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A LIVE LOCAL PAPER, 

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— ANO — 

THE IMPROVEMENT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 

IN EVERY POSSIBLE DIRECTION AND MANNER. 



Persons at the East who contemplate removing to this section 
will get a very fair idea of our Climate, Productions, Society, etc,, 
through the columns of the Index. 

As a medium of Advertising, with a view to reach most of the 
people of this section, the Index is a favorite. Its many columns 
of interesting reading matter, and its carefully prepared Local de- 
partment, insure a large circulation. 



TERMS: 

Per Year, in advance $4 00 

Three months, « 100 



THE OFFICE HAS EVERY FACILITY FOR DOING 

JOB PRINTING 

TASTEFULLY, PROMPTLY AND CHEAPLY. 

Address all orders to 

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Editors and Publishers of Index, SANTA BARBARA, CAL 



C. A. THOMPSON, 



J. H. KINCA1D 



Shotweli Brothers, 



ROBT. M. DILLARD, 

ATTORNEY AND COUNSELOR AT LA 1 .' 




P*5S IE 



i 



FRISIUS & HERNSTER, LELAND & CO., 

nL\r;«^ Z!^ »*<**»* ^* ;il © 5tat * &3**** Groceries., visiors, ID E1TTIE 

WlUCS nub ^LiqufltS. - D or twenty years- practice 



DR. N. SHREWSBURY, 

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S T 



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I.IVIM HAKIM It 1. 



GUIDE 



TO 



SANTA BARBARA 



TOWN AND COUNTY, 



CONTAINING INFORMATION ON MATTERS OF INTEREST 
TO TOURISTS, NEW SETTLERS, INVALIDS, ETC. 



Iagra?@d Expressly for this Work. 



&y M JST. ttood: 




SANTA BARBARA, CAL.: 

WOOD & SBFTON, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, 
1872. 



TA<BLE OF COJVTEJVTS, 



1. Early History • ? 

2. The Mission System, 8 

3. Recent History, 9 

4. Means of Access. - 10 

5. The Town, 12 

6. Hotels, - 13 

7. Hacks, Carriages and Livery, - 1.4 

8. Gas and Water Companies, 15 

9. Town Library, - 15 

10. Secret Societies, 16 

11. Churches, - 16 

12. School Facilities, 17 

13. Population, - 10 

14. Local Government, 20 

15. Financial Condition, 20 

16. Newspapers, - 21 

17. Other Towns, - 2J 

18. Places of Interest to Visitors, - 22 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



19. The Hot Springs, - - - -24 

20. The Mission, .... 24 

21. The Mammoth Grapevine, - - -26 

22. Colonel Hollister's, 28 

23. Climate, - - - - - 31 

24. Climate for Invalids, 34 

25. Temperature, - - - - - 49 

26. Scenery, - - - - • 51 

27. Fishing and Hunting, - - - 53 

28. Irrigation, - - - - 54 

29. Agriculture, - - - 55 

30. Cheap House Building, 61 

31. Fruit Culture, - - - - 62 

32. Wool Growing, -. - 68 

33. Cost of Living, - - - - - 69 

34. Mineralogy, ... 71 

35. Earthquakes, - - - - - 72 

36. California and Palestine, - - 74 

37. The Valley of Santa Barbara, - - 75 



TO THE fREJ<£E(R, 



This little work does not pretend to be largely orig- 
inal. The class of people whom it is intended more es- 
pecially to interest, are more concerned to find it trust 
worthy than original, and we have endeavored to meet 
their wishes. It is mainly a compilation of facts and 
reports of disinterested persons with regard to this por- 
tion of California, most of which are things familiar to 
our home readers, but no less new and interesting to 
visitors and those who think of settling here. The materi- 
als have been carefully and conscientiously selected, and 
we believe every important statement we have made 
has been pronounced within bounds by competent judges 
in each specialty. We have given copious extracts 
from letters of intelligent visitors, not from want of 
other material, but on account of the added authority 
furnished inmost instances by the names of the writers. 



Let us go to Santa Barbara 1 — -The description 
that come from there are enchanting as well as appe- 
tizing. Olive and orange groves; stately walnut trees; 
vines clustering on the hill-side; fruits of every variety 
—tropical, semi-tropical, and temperate; orchards 
equaling those of Sorrento, and an air from the ocean 
as soft and refreshing as from the Mediterranean. 
Beach drives unequaled ; mountain views unrivaled ; ro 
mantic glens and groves—Harper's Bazar. 




HE earliest authentic record states that Califor- 
nia was discovered in 1542, fifty years after 
Columbus landed upon San Salvador, by Ca^ 
brillo, a navigator in the Spanish service. He 
spent six months among the natives in what is 
now Santa Barbara county, and has left on record the 
names of forty towns or villages which then existed in 
this section of the state. Our county has an antiquity 
of its own. Three hundred years ago it was a densely 
populated region ; its fertile soil freely supplied nuts 
and wild fruits ; native horses roamed over its hills, and 
abundant game of many kinds since exterminated $ the 
bay swarmed with fish. The simple and indolent abo< 
rigines wore no clothing to speak of, all their needs 
were supplied by nature and the delicious climate, they 
lived out their days in security and unconcern, and 
handed down through the years their traditions and 
tropical mythology. On Catalina Island was a temple 
containing an idol which was worshiped with sacrifices. 



h GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY, 

The whole country swarmed with a population vastly 
greater than has since occupied it. At long intervale 
huge ships appeared upon the €|uiet haf and strange 
tongued men came ashore, procured supplies and sailed 
away, And as the years passed on, the coining of the 
strange ships grew more frequent, till it gradually be- 
came known to the explorers that California was not an 
island, and was not a peninsula, and the great river to 
the north did not connect with the Atlantic ocean. 

But alas I as the knowledge of the stranger grew r 
and his footsteps encroached upon their territory, the 
primitive race slowly faded before him. Their day 
had passed into the twilight when, a hundred years 
ago, the Catholic religion and the Spanish arms gained 
a foothold among them, 

The first efforts toward civilization were made by the 
Franciscan friars. They founded the first Mission in 
California at San Diego in 1769. That of Santa Bar- 
bara was established in 1786, being the tenth in point 
of time. Here they gathered the natives, taught them 
the mysteries of religion and labor, and fed them on 
rice and moral precepts. After a few years of toil and 
orivation the Holy Fathers began to grow into power 
and opulence. They were the temporal as well as 
spiritual lords of the land ; they cultivated the vine, 
the olive and the fig,, and enjoyed all the comforts and 
luxuries a genial climate, a generous soil and abun- 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 9 

dance of costless labor could produce ; for the whole 
race of natives were their servants, working for food 
and raiment of their own production. For sixty years, 
or until 1830, the missionaries had an almost undis- 
turbed field in which to test their schemes for civilizing 
the natives. They extended their dominion from San 
Diego to San Francisco, establishing Missions at inter- 
vals of twenty or thirty miles, and appropriating the 
lands between, so that the coast was lined with a cordon 
of their contiguous possessions. They founded in all 
twenty Missions, the last in 1820. From 1800 to 1822 
(when the Spanish dominion in Mexico was overthrown), 
the Fathers appear to have experienced the halcyon 
days of their system, living in patriarchal state with 
almost regal revenues and powers. In 1825 the Mission 
of Santa Barbara had 75,000 cattle, 5,000 tame horses 
and mules and 40,000 sheep. The immense wealth of 
the Missions proved their ruin. It became known in 
Mexico, and through the numerous revolutions occur- 
ring there, the Missions were regarded as lawful prey 
and every change of government brought them new 
despoilers. In 1840 the Mexican government took 
charge of them and most of them were allowed to go 
to decay. Thus ended the Mission system. 



After the palmy days of the priestly rule had yielded 
to military and civil dominion, and allegiance had been 
transferred from Spain to Mexico, Santa Barbara was 



10 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 



a place of importance in the territory. Here certain 
of the Governors resided, and here were held " Depart- 
mental Assemblies," till they went out in 1846 with 
Pio Pico, the last of the old-time Governors. So late 
as 1841 Los Angeles was the largest town in California, 
and Santa Barbara and San Francisco were of equal 
size. In 1846 the question of annexing California to 
England was discussed and decided in the negative at 
an "Assembly*" convened in this town. Soon after 
this event the discovery of gold created new centres of 
wealth and population nearer the mining regions, and 
the southern portion of the state was left in quiet in 
the mad rush for speedier gains. Of late statistics 
show that only 16 per cent, of the gross products of the 
state arise from gold and other metals, and 45 per cent. 
from agricultural sources, and this section increases in 
importance more than correspondingly ; for its soil is 
by no means the only ground on which it now receives 
such ready and wide spread notice. 



It is reached from San Francisco by the steamers of 
the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the "Kalorania," 
of another line, or overland by railroad and stage. As 
one comes down the coast the change in atmosphere 
and climate is as marked when he has passed Point 
Concepcion as when he has passed Cape Hatteras on 
the Atlantic coast, The weather becomes warm and 
bright ; those who were seasick come on deck and all 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. li 

find constant pleasure in admiring the wild and pictur- 
esque scenery of the Coast Range of mountains which 
closely follows the trend of the shore for most of the 
way. Through nearly the whole trip the vessel sails 
within sight of the land, — so near indeed as often to 
render easily discernible houses and fences and graz- 
ing cattle, where the mountains recede a little, leav- 
ing fertile and beautiful valleys bordering on the wa- 
ter. 

During the rains and the earlier months of summer 
these seaside valleys form most beautiful pictures, their 
bright shades of green contrasting so vividly with the 
black mountain sides and the level waste of waters on 
the other side of the ship. Thirty hours out from the 
Golden Gate, the steamer, turning a sudden point, faces 
directly north and comes up the bay to the anchorage. 
Before it spreads the town of Santa Barbara, half 
hidden among its trees, low and cool and beautiful in 
the peculiar film of the sunset that seems to fill all the 
air with floating gold. The waters of the bay are still 
and level as a floor, and few scenes are fairer than this 
which spreads itself out to the traveler standing on the 
deck. 

Those who prefer traveling on terra jirma can take 
\h^ cars of the San Jose railroad from San Francisco 
to Gilroy, whence the journey is finished by daily 
stages. It is now almost positive that the Atlantic and 
Pacific railroad will pass through Santa Barbara, when 
it will become an important point on a great continen- 
tal route, easily reached from any quarter. 



12 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 



It is situated on the sea, nearly in the centre of the 
county, on the southern coast line. It extends for a 
mile and a half back from the beach. Many houses of 
the Spanish population are of adobe, roofed with red 
semi-cylindrical tiles in the old style of southern 
Spain. 

" Santa Barbara has one of the most beautiful situ- 
ations in California, placed in a green valley opening 
out to the sea, between picturesque hills on either side, 
and with a fine chain of mountains in the back ground. 
The grand old Spanish Mission seems to stand guard 
over it, upon the hills behind." — [The New "West, by 
C. L. Brace. 

" Impartially viewed in its surroundings, and for 
natural advantages, Santa Barbara is the most delight- 
ful place in California. The town stands on gently 
rising ground, and is well laid out with broad avenues. 
Skirting the beach, its plateau extends back about 
three miles, and possesses many beautiful sites for resi- 
dences. Its gradual slope is also ample for drainage. 
Viewed from the sea its panorama is one of great 
beauty. Prosperity and good 4;aste are exhibited in 
the style of its new buildings." — [Correspondence San 
Francisco Examiner. 

The environs of the town are being rapidly built up 
with tasteful and pleasant houses, and the buildings 
indicate that the attainment of solid comfort has been 
the object of their owners. Each year gives us more 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY* 13 

and better new buildings than any previous one. Dur- 
the year ending October, buildings have been finished 
or begun in the town, the aggregate cost of which will 
amount to $200,000. A good deal of real estate is 
changing hands, not only in town but through the 
county. The value of all property is increasing stead- 
ily and normally. It is no mushroom growth. New 
comers are buying lots and erecting houses for homes, 
not for speculation. 



The leading hotel is the Shaw House. It is a large 
three story brick building, on the corner of State and 
Haley streets. Incorporated in the brick work is a 
solid frame work of timber which was first put up. 
braced and anchored in the strongest manner, to give 
firmness to the structure. Broad verandas front on the 
two streets, and the rooms are handsomely furnished, 
pleasant and sunny. Mr. Shaw is an accommodating 
landlord, and the house is well kept and generally full 
of guests. It was completed in the autumn of 1871. 
The transient charge is $2 00 per day. 

The St. Charles is a two- story adobe building, sur- 
rounded by verandas above and below, in appropriate 
style for this climate. Its table is good and charges 
are $1 50 to $2 00 per day. It is reported that this 
house is soon to be very greatly enlarged and improved. 

A new hotel, the largest in town, is nearly completed 



14 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICIN1TV, 

and will be opened in November. It is on the corner 
of State and Cota streets, and presents an imposing ap- 
pearance, being three stories high, with Mansard roof, 
observatory and verandas. It is of brick, the principal 
material now used in the construction of stores and 
public buildings, It is supplied with all the modern 
improvements and Mr. Raifour promises to make it a 
strictly first-class house, as he is capable of doing. It 
will contain billiard rooms, telegraph office, barber's 
saloon, &c. Charges are not yet fixed but will be 
moderate. 

For such as wish to live more quietly there are sev- 
eral excellent boarding houses. Among them we may 
mention those of E. J. Knapp and D. E. Ver Planck, 
which are convenient to the beach, and A. L. Lincoln's 
up town and in dryer air. 



The facilities for conveyance about the town and to 
the various places of interest in the vicinity are most 
ample. Carriages, open and close, are always in front 
of the hotels, and as good as can be found anywhere. 
Their owners usually drive them, and are interested in 
giving satisfaction to customers. The charges to or 
from the steamers is 50 cents. For driving about the 
town $2 an hour. 

The livery stables furnish excellent turnouts, and 
drivers if desired. Their rates are : 
Saddle horse per day $2 00 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 15 

Single carriage per day $5 00 

. " ■ " half day or less 2 50 

Two horse carriage per day , 7 00 

« « half day 4 00 

No visitor who does not take several drives in differ- 
ent directions from the town, can have an adequate idea 
of the natural beauty of this vicinity. 

We have no street railroad as yet, but a passenger- 
express wagon runs up and down State street during 
the day, in which one may ride the length of the town 
for an eight cent ticket. 



The Maxim Gas Company put up works in town a 
few months since, and their pipes have been introduced 
into a number of public and private houses, besides 
lighting State street. 

Within a few months the town will be supplied with 
water in pipes. Portions of the necessary works were 
constructed long ago by the Indians attached to the 
Mission, and consist of reservoirs and aqueducts run- 
ning over with pure spring water from the neighboring 
hills. The lower reservoir has a capacity of 1,500,000 
gallons. 



This is one of the features of the place. Several 
hundred carefully selected books are collected and new 
publications are constantly added. It is a pleasant and 



16 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

popular resort among reading people, and is something 
rarely found in Western towns of this size. Its origin 
and continuance are due to the energetic efforts of a 
young lady who came here for her health two years 
since. 



The Masons and Odd Fellows have flourishing chap- 
ters here, which meet in rooms over the store of F. W. 
Frost & Co. The Santa Barbara Lodge, No. 192, F. 
and A. M. meets every fourth Saturday evening. 

Santa Barbara Lodge No. 156, 1. 0. 0. F. meets on 
Tuesday evenings at 8 o'clock. 



The town is well supplied with churches, all of 
which have settled preachers and are in a prosperous 
condition. Besides the Mission, which is still opened 
for services, there are five others. The Catholic is the 
largest, of which most of the Mexican and some of the 
older American settlers are members. It is centrally 
located on State street and has a chime of bells swung 
in the yard which were cast in Spain. The building 
is 100 feet long with an addition of forty feet for the 
altar. Its pastor is a native of Spain, a man of great 
zeal and energy and of courtly manners. The congre- 
gation is large and the music fine. Services are con- 
ducted in English and Spanish. 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 17 

The Episcopal church is near the hotels and the 
beach. It is a brick building, plainly fitted up e The 
congregation is not large but steadily increasing. The 
ladies of the church have just built and furnished a 
parsonage. 

The Methodist church, corner Vine and De la Guerra 
streets, is of brick, neat and of good size. The par- 
sonage stands next the church. Pastor, Kev. Robert 
Bentley. 

The Presbyterians occupy a very neat frame chapel, 
one block from the Methodist, preparatory to erecting a 
handsome church. It is generally quite filled on Sun- 
day mornings, and is under the pastoral care of Rev. 
J. Phelps, D.D. 

The Congregational church is the most pretentious of 
these structures. It is of brick, in the Gothic style, 
with a handsome tower on one corner, and an attrac- 
tive interior. 



There are some twenty school districts in the county ; 
female teachers are in demand and earn from $50 to 
$100 a month, but they need to be well qualified in 
order to pass the preliminary examination, which is 
stricter than at the East. The school houses are bet- 
ter built and furnished than they will average in New 
England, in counties of equal population. 

The Public School house in Santa Barbara is a 



18 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

handsome two- story brick building with high basement, 
recently finished at a cost of $12,500 and surrounded 
with ample grounds. The rooms are spacious and well 
ventilated. Those on each floor are connected by huge 
sliding doors to allow of their being thrown into one 
room when desired. This structure is occupied by the 
higher departments of the Public Schools, and is so 
planned that its capacity can be doubled, as will soon 
become necessary, by joining to it a duplicate structure. 
It is liberally supplied with maps and the usual acces- 
sories now common, and is fitted up with the latest 
styles of furniture. It also has a well selected though 
not yet large library. 

The Santa Barbara College was established in 1869 
as a high school with a regular course of study. It 
has prospered so beyond expectation that already the 
large building is found insufficient for its needs, and 
the Board of Trustees are now adding large extensions 
to the edifice, and at the same time greatly enlarging 
the scope of the course of study. Among the improve- 
ments is a fine and complete Gymnasium. They have 
an accomplished corps of teachers headed by a gradu- 
ate of a celebrated German University. This school 
bids fair to become one of the most popular and thor- 
ough in California. 

The Franciscan College (Catholic) was founded in 
1868. It occupies the wing of the Mission building. 
From 80 to 100 boys are educated here every year at 
little more than half the expense in most schools of 
the state. This institution is very popular and it 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 19 

will soon become necessary to enlarge its accommoda- 
tions. 

The St. Vincent's School was established here by the 
Sisters of Charity, in 1858. Their present large build- 
ing was completed in 1869. The increasing population 
of the town for the past three years having considera- 
bly augmented the number of pupils, it was deemed ad- 
visable to complete and improve the original plan of the 
building. This work is now progressing and when fin- 
ished will add greatly to the comfort of the inmates. 
The grounds are spacious, and (except the recreation 
yard) under cultivation. Every branch of a thorough 
English, Spanish, French and musical education is 
taught by the Sisters. 



The population of the town is about 3,500; of the 
county about 10,000. It is mainly composed of Ameri- 
cans •; there is a large Spanish element, but it is grad- 
ually decreasing. The immigration is mostly from the 
North Atlantic and Western states, consisting of in- 
telligent and educated people. Every year marks a 
steady and rapid increase of population, many of the 
new comers having acquired property elsewhere, being 
attracted here by the climate, from places where fail- 
ing health of some member of the family, or the 
severity of the winters rendered their further residence 
undesirable. 



20 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 



The machinery of our local government is very sim- 
ple and inexpensive. County affairs are managed by a 
Board of Supervisors consisting of three members, and 
those of the city by a Common Council consisting of 
five members. 



The indebtedness of the county is now $19,000, hav- 
ing been reduced one half since 1867, and is funded at 
the low rate of seven per cent, interest. On the other 
hand during the last five years the population of the 
county has doubled, and the assessed value of its real 
estate and personal property has increased nearly ten- 
fold. During the same period the rate of taxation for 
county purposes has been reduced from two per cent. 
to six -tenths of one per cent. The value of real estate 
and personal property in 1870, according to the Census, 
was over $10,000,000. Only four other counties in the 
state have an equally small rate of taxation, and in 
those four the climate is worse, if possible, than taxes. 
Only two other counties have a climate similar to ours 
— Los Angeles and San Diego, — and both are saddled 
with an enormous county debt. This exhibit is by no 
means the least among the advantages offered by this 
county to settlers, and shows that its financial affairs 
have been carefully and faithfully administered. 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 21 



There. are four newspaper offices in the county. The 
Index, Press and Times are published at Santa Bar- 
bara, and the Signal at San Buenaventura. 



San Buenaventura, thirty miles east of Santa Bar* 
bara, on the sea shore, is the next largest town in the 
county. The road between the two places is very ro- 
mantic, running for half the distance along the narrow 
beach, between the ocean and almost perpendicular 
mountains. Ventura, as it is generally called, is also 
the site of one of the ancient Missions. It is a pros- 
perous town and is steadily growing. A long wharf 
has recently been completed, and a large shipping bus- 
iness is done here, as it is the outlet for the products of 
hundreds of square miles of fertile agricultural coun- 
try. The town is abundantly supplied with excellent 
water by a canal seven miles in length. 

From Ventura eastward the mountains and coast 
line diverge nearly at right angles, and the country 
opens out into the broad rolling valleys containing some 
of the finest land in the state. In these valleys irriga- 
tion is practiced to quite an extent. 

Hueneme (pronounced and sometimes spelled Wyne- 
ma) is a sea-port town recently founded, fifteen miles 
below Ventura. It is accessible to sailing vessels and 
steamers, and the conformation of the shore is such 



22 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

that an ample and safe harbor can be constructed with- 
out an extravagant outlay. As Thos. A. Scott, the 
railroad king, owns an immense amount of land in this 
part of the county, including the town site, those who 
choose to settle here can be assured that intelligent 
management and immense resources will be employed 
in developing the country and building up an impor- 
tant town. A railroad from Hueneme through the 
valley of the Santa Clara river to Los Angeles is not 
an improbable thing in the near future. 

There are several small villages or settlements in dif- 
ferent parts of the county, of which we cannot give an 
extended notice for want of space. 



There are several places in town, or within easy dis- 
tance of it, which those who travel for pleasure or in- 
struction will find quite worthy of a visit for one reason 
or another. To one who thoughtfully studies what is 
here presented to his attention, the traditions and my- 
thology of the past form a curious intermingling with 
the matter-of-fact existence of to-day. 

At the orchards and vineyards of Mr. Goux and Mr. 
Packard, just west of town, may be seen a fair speci- 
men of what cur soil and climate will accomplish in 
the rapid maturity and prolific bearing of various fruits. 
Here also the silk-worm business and the processes of 
wine-making are open to the inspection of the stranger. 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA ANB VICINITY. 23 

The grounds of Dr. Shaw and Judge Fernald are 
delightful places for one to study who doubts the won* 
derful capacities of this almost fairy land. In these 
grounds are fruit trees as follows : Apple, pear, 
peach, nectarine, apricot, fig (several varieties), Japan 
loquat, guava, lemon, orange, pomegranate, olive, Eng- 
lish walnut, black walnut, Italian chestnut, almond. 
Among the' shrubs and ornamental trees are the elm, 
locust, pepper, eucalyptus of many varieties, auricaria, 
fir, Monterey, Haytian and Italian cypress, Australian 
palm, laurustine, pongia and others. In addition 
these places, like many others, are bursting with beau- 
tiful and fragrant flowers such as a breath of frost 
would wither, but which here grow to mammoth size, 
and are perennial. 

The beach is hard and smooth as a floor and affords a 
charming drive for many miles ; and the views are suc- 
cessively lovely as we round each curve and point. 
Returning at sunset the scene is magnificent, the ves- 
sels rolling lazily on the water, the town spreading 
away under* branching trees, the brilliant colors of the 
evening sky, and the warm, fresh, beautiful air that 
never chills and never enervates, while the huge bil- 
lows break at our feet, and we seem floating rather 
than driving in the white borders of the sea. 

One of the finest places in the vicinity of the town is 
that of Mr. Bond, in Montecito, which three years ago 
was covered with rocks and oak trees. It is now a 
smooth and well-kept almond orchard containing sev- 
eral hundred trees, besides fruit trees of various kinds. 



24 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY". 

The flower garden is filled with flowers and shrubs of 
rare varieties and from almost every latitude and coun- 
try. The object of the owner is to ascertain what 
limits are imposed upon frigid or tropical vegetable 
growth by this climate. Several species of palm and 
the banana flourish beside firs and spruce trees. The 
alder, which is a shrub in New England, is here a tree 
thirty feet high. Geraniums and verbenas, which 
there grow in pots, here clamber over piazzas and cot- 
tage roofs. 



Up a steep winding road that bores like a corkscrew 
into the heart of the mountain, lie hidden away mineral 
springs of rare remedial power. The sick drink of the 
waters and bathe in them, and are healed. The well 
drive up of a morning, and go into the steaming pool 
of Siloam for pleasure. The scenery is rough and 
craggy and uncanny as the witches 7 cavern, but go out 
on one of those jutting rocks and you will look down 
upon a view that amply repays the exertion. The lim- 
ited accommodations for invalid visitors at the springs 
are generally tasked to the utmost. A large hotel with- 
in a mile would never lack for patronage. The medici- 
nal qualities of these waters will be referred to again. 



The historical feature and nucleus of this old Mexi- 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 25 

can town, now in an active transition stage, is the old 
Mission Cathedral, about two miles from the wharves, 
and at about three hundred feet elevation above the sea 
level. It is usually the first object of interest to be 
visited by Eastern travelers. It is built of sandstone 
from the neighboring hills, and one is struck with the 
ancient grandeur of its imposing Moorish style of arch- 
itecture. Its walls are over five feet in thickness, and 
the cement uniting them cannot be broken even with 
a heavy pick. They are further supported by heavy 
buttresses. It was built somewhat after the general 
plan of the other twenty on the coast. The church was 
the central object, and it was made as large and hand- 
some as possible. Its interior was as highly decorated 
as the means of the Fathers would allow. The walls 
were covered with gorgeously colored paintings of ob- 
jects calculated to attract the attention of the simple- 
minded natives, while about the altar were placed 
massive gilded candlesticks, images, gold and silver 
vessels, etc. Near the high altar are deposited the re- 
mains of the first bishop of Upper and Lower California, 
who died here. The sombrero of the prelate hangs 
above his tomb. 

The Mission continues in good repair and is the most 
pretentious of these ancient structures. The main 
nave of the building is two hundred feet long and forty 
feet wide, having two high towers in front, with bel- 
fries of solid masonry, above each of which is the sym- 
bolical cross. To the left is a wing one hundred and 
thirty feet long, with porches supported by pillars and 



26 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

arches, all in a good state of preservation. This wing 
is now used for educational purposes. In front of this 
massive edifice there remain the ruins of a large foun- 
tain of ornate workmanship, and signs of the walks 
and parterres the worthy Padres delighted to cultivate. 
To one side is a large old olive orchard. 

It is well known that the Fathers selected the choicest 
sites along the coast for their own use ; it is evident 
they were men of sound judgment and clear sighted 
prophecy in many respects, and cultivated tastes. In 
the location of this Mission they were particularly 
happy 5 building stone, fuel and timber were abundant, 
and an inexhaustible supply of mountain water was 
close at hand : they were sufficiently removed from the 
sea to be secure from hostile attacks from that quarter, 
with such naval ordnance as was then in vogue, and 
on an eminence which swept the valley east and west 
for many miles • its white domes being the first object 
to meet the eye of the traveler, from whatever direction 
he might approach $ the position was commanding, the 
soil rich and kindly, the scenery unsurpassed. The 
keen eyed Padres had marked the place on their fre- 
quent trips along the coast, both by land and sea, dur- 
ing the seventeen years they had been in the country. 
It is just beyond the town limits and is still opened for 
services performed by the Spanish pastor. 



Three miles east of the town, in Montecito, may be 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 27 

seen the most gigantic grapevine in all the world. It 
is between fifty and seventy years old, as nearly as can 
be computed from the accounts given by the native 
people living about, and has grown from a slip stuck in 
the ground by a young Spanish woman who had cut it 
to use as a riding whip. The temptation is strong not 
to pass by this opportunity without weaving into the 
tradition some little romantic sketch, but want of space 
and romance compels us to resist it. The vine stands 
erect like the trunk of a large tree till it reaches the 
hight of eight feet, where it measures four feet and 
eight inches in circumference. Here it divides into 
several horizontal branches, each as large as a man's 
leg, which sub-divide and wind away and run riot over 
an immense trellis, covering an area of 4,000 square 
feet with a tangled thicket of green leaves and purple 
grapes, through which the fervid rays of a September 
sun never find their way. 

Under this tropical trellis, on the hard beaten earth, 
many a rising moon has thrown its level beams upon 
senor and senorita dancing to the sad guitar, or upon 
the easy swing and wild abandon of the Spanish fan- 
dango. Here is the romance of the south. Here 
should the poet lounge aim smoke in the starlight with- 
out, watching the dreamy convolutions of the waltz, 
listening to the soft rhythm of the Spanish tongue as 
voices float above the sighing of the music. Here too 
have come the murderer and the outlaw, stopping for 
pleasure in their flight from death. And here the 
officers of justice overtaking the fugitive, a desperate 



28 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

shot and its answer have interrupted the dance for a 
moment and put the desperado beyond reach of judge 
and jury. 

This vine produces annually from 8,000 to 10,000 
pounds of grapes. Its product is said to have reached 
occasionally 14,000 pounds. The extension of the vine 
is limited only by the trellis supporting it, the branches 
being an inch or two in diameter where they are cut off 
at the edge. A smaller vine near by is about fourteen 
years old, and gives promise of becoming a rival ex- 
cept that it is hemmed in between the larger vine and a 
house. They certainly prove the wonderful adaptabili- 
ty of the soil and climate to vine culture. 

Hyatt's u Hand Book of Grape Culture " thus be- 
gins a chapter on this vine : " We call this the Mam- 
moth, not so much on account of the size of its fruit as 
of the vine itself and of its prodigious prolific proper- 
ties. It is one of the celebrities of Southern Califor- 
nia. It was the riding whip of a Spanish woman, 
given by her lover, which she planted," (not the lover 
but the whip) u and it has developed into that grand 
memento of love, the largest and most famous vine in 
the world." 



The following description of the grounds and farm 
of this well-known gentleman, is taken from recent cor- 
respondence of the New York World : 

" While at Santa Barbara I visited a representative 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. !29 

or model farm. An account of the visit will convey a 
better idea of the resources of the country than any 
general description. We drove up the beautiful valley 
a dozen miles, to where a wide opening of the coast 
hills gave an extended view of the sea. Here we en- 
tered a well-made avenue at the side of a grove of mag- 
nificent live-oaks leading to the residence, visible miles 
away, of Col. Hollister, one of the great wool growers 
of this region. The house was imbedded in a mass of 
roses, carnations, verbenas, geraniums, calla lilies, 
fuchsias, gladioli, and other rare flowers, while its in* 
terior indicated the culture and taste of its occupants* 
We were cordially greeted by CoL Hollister, the 
millionaire of Santa Barbara county, whose frank hos- 
pitality made us perfectly at home. * * * * Re- 
entering our carriage we drove over an excellent road 
skirted by live-oaks, through gates opening and closing 
to the touch of the carriage wheels, winding round the 
edge of valleys, crossing gullies, and cutting through 
the crests of little hills ; past fields of vheat, barley 
and corn, and great orchards of growing almond and 
walnut trees, till we reached a beautiful level plain hid- 
den close away under the mountain, at the head of 
which the new and ample summer cottage stands. 
Here also we enjoyed a beautiful ocean view, and un- 
surpassed nearer visions of sloping hillside and rugged 
mountain, with their many varied tints of green. A 
further drive of a mile up the valley — for though we 
were apparently close under the mountain, the canon 
opened fertile and inviting far away on either side — 



30 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

brought us to one of Mr. H.'s tea plantations. He 
has imported not only the plants but experienced labor- 
ers, and remarked that he was trying the plant in every 
possible situation as to soil and exposure, that he might 
determine to which it is best adapted. 

A genuine Central Park omnibus stands in the car- 
riage house, for transporting the family to and fro be- 
tween the winter and summer residences. The wind- 
ing roads wrought out of the hillside, the groves of 
forest trees, valley and glen and rocky mountain side 
found their counterpart in my memory only in that 
gem of Llewellyn Park, at Orange, N. J., and it 
seemed to me the proprietors must be kindred spirits. 

Col. H. showed me sample stalks of wheat ripening, 
six and seven feet high, with heads of proportionate 
size, and a bunch of barley numbering 170 stalks, the 
product of a single seed I His fields were luxuriant 
with the burr clover and alfileria. the rich annual grass 
of this region. The excellence of these grasses can 
hardly be understood by the eastern reader. The 
burrs are very full of nutriment, and equally good 
when dry. 

Col. H. has an orchard of 7,000 almond trees, and 
will transplant 30,000 more this year. I saw here 
tomato plants of three years' growth in blossom, and 
ripening fruit on the same vine 5 also crisp and tender 
celery, growing rank, three feet above ground. It was 
in no way inferior, only different in color, to the finest 
that ever graced Delmonico's. Here were the beauti- 
ful acacias, a flowering tree, only two years old, six 



OTIlpl TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 31 

inches in diameter, and near by I saw almond trees of 
luxuriant growth, and in full bearing, only three years 
old. 

CoL IL has on his ranehos up the coast over 50,000 
sheep, and I saw an elegant hunting-horn, manufac- 
tured from the horn of the buck Grksly, from whose 
back, in 1859, was taken a fleece of fourteen months 
and ten days' growth, weighing forty- two and a half 
pounds ! 

Without taking this as a criterion, I could credit the 
remark of our host, that here one enjoyed not only a 
perfect climate, but tilled the soil with the least labor 
and for the largest returns of any portion of our coun- 
try. Land here is not abundant in market. Large- 
tracts can occasionally be bought at $10 an acre,- As 
divided it will bring much more. As I left this invit- 
ing spot I ventured to predict that ten years hence the 
Santa Barbara valley for sixty miles along the bay will 
by reason of its unsurpassed climate and fertile soil, 
have become a very garden, in which this beautiful 
farm will stand prominent as the gem of Southern Cab 
ifornia, an example of what beneficent Nature and the 
skilled hand of one of her worshippers can do towards 
creating an earthly paradise." 



No general remarks can be made concerning the 
climate of California. Nothing can be said of it that 
is not true of one section and false as to another. The 



32 GtflDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY, 

wind is the all-important element of comfort or discom- 
fort, of use or destruction, on this coast. North of 
Point Concepcion the coast during the summer is swept 
by cold fog-bearing winds from the northwest, and by 
violent rain storms from the south during the winter. 
Below this Point the whole coast has a very different 
climate, being both warmer and dryer, but this valley 
is peculiarly sheltered otherwise. The county has the 
only coast line facing southward oh the Pacific coast 
between Alaska and Guatamala ; the Santa Ynez range 
of mountains, 4,000 feet high, traverses it from east to 
west. These peculiar features of its topography great- 
ly affect its climate. Extending eastward for one hun- 
dred miles along the sea shore south of these moun- 
tains, is a belt of land from three to six miles in width, 
the climate of which is almost tropical, and unsur- 
passed by that of any other part of the world. Snow 
rarely falls on the highest peaks — frost is almost un- 
known — and it seldom rains from April to December. 
The mountains behind shut off the northwest trades, 
and the mountainous islands in front arrest the rain- 
bearing winds of winter. These, with its position by 
the sea, produce its wonderful evenness of temperature 
through all the months. The sea between the islands 
and the shore is almost as smooth as a river. Old eea 
captains assert that the only part of the coast fit for a 
residence is that below Point Concepcion. 

There are essentially two climates in California — the 
land and the sea climate. The latter derives its low 
and even temperature from the ocean, which along the 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 33 

coast stands at 52° to 54° through the year. The sum- 
mers are hotter in the north. One might travel from 
Santa Barbara northward in summer for 300 miles, 
and find it hotter everywhere than here, or go south- 
east the same distance to Fort Yuma, one of the hottest 
places in the world. 

In speaking of the i ! rainy season ' ? we do not mean 
a season of constant rains, or anything like it. The 
term is employed only in contrast with the dry season 
and implies the possibility of rain rather than its ac- 
tual occurrence. In this county, even in the seasons of 
most rain by far the larger part of the winter is bright 
and clear weather. It is usually regarded as the most 
pleasant part of the year. It is spring rather than 
winter, and most of the rain falls at night. The grass 
starts as soon as the soil is wet, and at Christmas the 
land is covered with green. 

The climate is always kindly. We are not troubled 
by the hot, exhausting days of the Eastern summer, 
which have no respite at night. In portions of the 
county the air is so dry and pure that fresh meat dries 
up instead of spoiling. Cloudy days seldom occur. 
Frost never reaches across the valley to the foothills. 
We have no thunder-storms, and the showers must 
needs be short and gentle that aggregate only twelve 
inches a year. From April to December there is no 
rain and one day is as another — bright, beautiful and 
life-giving. The gentle sea breeze is tonic and invigor- 
ating, and relieves the climate from enervation. The 
days combine the freshness of early spring in the At- 



34 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

lantic states with the softness and dreaminess of the 
Indian summer, and every day is a new delight. If 
one thinks of this continuing all the year with hardly 
twenty days' exception, he eannot doubt that Santa 
Barbara has a climate as nearly perfect as can be found. 
Nowhere else is the actual pleasure of mere existence 
so sensibly experienced as here. 



It is conceded by all visitors to be beneficial, not only 
for pulmonary Gomplaints, but for a large class of other 
diseases. Fever and ague is unheard of. Rheumatism 
and kindred troubles find a specific in the mineral wa* 
ters of the Hot Springs. Invalids make slight, if any, 
changes in amount of clothing through the year. Out- 
door life is never repellent and never impracticable. 
Professor Bennett, of the University of Edinburg, 
writes concerning phthisis : "Much has been written 
of climate, but the one which appears to be best is that 
which v ill enable the patient to pass a few hours every 
day in the open air without exposure to cold or vicissi- 
tudes of temperature on the one hand, or extreme heat 
on the other/ 1 He could not have described the cli- 
mate of Santa Barbara more accurately. 

On this topic we have ample testimony of medical 
men, from which we will quote sparingly, as being au- 
thoritative. 

A report was recently made to the State Medieai So- 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 35 

ciety by Dr. M. H. Biggs, from which we extract as 
follows : 

" I beg to make a few remarks in regard to the cli- 
mate of that portion of the county of Santa Barbara 
which consists of a narrow strip of land lying on the 
coast, beginning at Point Concepcion and ending at 
Point San Buenaventura. About two-thirds of it is un- 
dulating or rolling land, the rest is in level spots, and 
all of the richest soil. Santa Barbara is blessed with 
an exceptional climate ; its equal not being on the Pa- 
cific coast, at least not outside of the tropics. * * * 
It is considered exceedingly warm should the thermom- 
eter rise to seventy-eight or eighty degrees at noon, 
and it hardly ever exceeds this unless caused by fires 
in the neighboring mountains, which now and then 
occur during the fall of the year. 

4 ' The most remarkable fact in regard to this region is 
the seeming impossibility for epidemics to visit it. The 
small-pox has ravaged the whole country three or four 
times since 1843. It has been singularly virulent in 
San Luis Obispo, the first town north of. us, and also in 
Los Angeles, which lies in the next county south. Dur- 
ing the prevalence of the epidemic persons have come 
from these neighboring towns with the seeds of the dis- 
ease, and have died in Santa Barbara within a few days 
of arriving, but some antiseptic property in the climate 
has prevented the contagion, and it has never spread. . 
Scarlatina and diphtheria are unknown here . There are 
some instances of the measles having been brought 
here, but it has never spread as an epidemic. There 



36 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

are no malarious fevers. Persons who come here, af- 
flicted with fever and ague, rarely have more than two 
or three attacks. They soon become well, even with- 
out the use of antiperiodics. The climate seems sufficient 
to cure the malady. During a residence of twenty 
years, I have seen only one case of membranous croup, 
and heard of two others. There is no disease endemic 
to Santa Barbara. 

• ' Many consumptives visit this part of the country 
and derive much benefit from its equable climate, which 
makes it especially appropriate to this class of patients, 
who besides find much attraction in the pleasant drives 
along the hard sea beach, or in the healthful rides and 
walks up the many romantic little dells and valleys and 
over the low rolling hills, covered here and there with 
clumps of evergreen oak, sycamore, cotton-wood laurel, 
alder, and other trees and shrubs too numerous to men- 
tion. We have every attraction that one of these days 
will make Santa Barbara a favorite resort for in- 
valids, convalescents, and all those who desire to pass 
a quiet, peaceful and healthy life.' 7 

Dr. Thomas M. Logan, of Sacramento, President of 
the United States Medical Association, made a visit to 
Santa Barbara as Secretary of the California State 
Board of Health, in pursuit of a suitable place for a 
State Sanitarium, and reported to the Legislature, giv- 
ing this place the preference over all others. In a let- 
ter to the San Frar-cisco Scientific Press, written from 
here, he says : 

u Editor Press: — I propose to give the public 



GXJlim T f 3AOT A ^AUBAJHA AND VICINITY 



through your columns some account of the climate, 
topography and surroundings of thi-B interesting re- 
gion, from a sanitary point of view. "This portion of 
California Stands out preeminently the land of promise 
to the weary and desponding Invalid, 

u Its very conformation and topography, while it ex- 
plains the cause, speaks to the intelligent reader of a 
elimate that cannot be otherwise than even, mild and 
soft, and at the same time invigorating with the moist 
but refreshing sea breezes which the thirsty land sucks 
in; In vain heretofore since my appointment as Health 
Officer to the state, have I sought for such a combination 
of sanitary qualities. Here in this mountain ant! is- 
land-locked valley, rising but a few feet from the 
waters of the Pacific, all the prerequisites of health are 
to be found in measures so profuse that I would be 
accused of poetic extravagance were they duly por- 
trayed. The instrumental and numerical proofs must 
be left to sustain all I have advanced • but before stat- 
ing these, which I can now only do in part, (reserving 
the fuller details for a state report,) I proceed to speak 
more particularly of the town proper, which furnishes 
the type of the whole region reviewed, and where the 
statistical and meteorogical data have been carefully 
compiled by trustworthy observers, 

* * * * * # 

" In fact nothing can now check the march of im- 
provement which in the last three years has advanced 
in a geometrical ratio, going on at the same rate to* 
wards building up this, the promised land, into a health 



3g GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 



resort, unsurpassed iu artificial, as it is in natural, ad- 
vantages by any place on the coast, the continent or the 

*°" Were I writing from any other than-a sanitary 
standpoint, I could dwell on the refined and cultivated 
society to be here met with. I could also speak of 
gardens redolent with the perfume of every kind of 
flower, of tasteful cottages, and of landscape news, 
which for loveliness and variety are rarely equaled. 
These meet one at every tarn, and almost tempt me 
While I write to stray into paths of descriptive romance. 
But I have taken np my pen to speak of facts-of cli- 
mate and of vital statistics-and to those I must con- 

fine myself. , . . , 

" About four miles from town, picturesquely located 
in one of the canons of the mountains, are hot sulphur 
springs, which have become favorably known as a 
place of resort for invalids, especially those suffering 
from rheumatic affections. 

" I learn from good authority that while the country 
was subject to the crown of Spain, the government 
sent out a commission of qualified scientific observers 
to make an examination and analysis of all mineral 
waters, both in Mexico and upon the Pacific coast, and 
that this commission, after spending much time prose- 
cuting their inquiries, reported the most favorably on 
the properties of these springs. _ 

"There is no day in the year in which the invalid may 
not si* out of doors. This covers the most essential 
indication in the treatment of consumption, by afford- 



GljlDU TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. SO 

ing a continuous supply of pure air for the lungs. 
Still, as the climate possesses some latent peculiarities 
in its favor, too subtile for ordinary observation, I shall 
instance the remarkable phenomenon so philosophically 
noted by Dr. BrinkerhofF, who has resided here eighteen 
years : 

u l Some ten miles from Santa Barbara, in the bed 
of the ocean, about one and a half miles from the 
shore, is an immense spring of petroleum, the product 
of which continually rises to the surface and floats 
upon it over an area of many miles. This mineral oil 
may be seen any day from the deck of the steamers 
plying between here and San Francisco^ or from the 
high banks along the shore. Having read statements 
that during the past few years the authorities of Danv 
ascus and other plague-ridden cities of the East have 
resorted to the practice of introducing crude petroleum 
into the gutters of the streets to disinfect the air, and 
as a preventive of disease, which practice has been afc 
tempted with the most favorable results, I throw out 
the suggestion whether the prevailing sea breezes, 
passing over this wide expanse of petroleum, may not 
take up and bear along some subtile power which serves 
as a disinfecting agent, and which may account for the 
infrequency of some of the diseases referred to, and 
possibly for the superior healthfulness of the climate of 
Santa Barbara.' 

u I would add that my attention has been directed to 
the peculiar ambrosial influence pervading the air, 
described above, and that I endorse all that has been 



40 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VIC1NTTT. 



stated in this respect. That the climate of Santa Bar- 
bara possesses all the elements of general healthfulness 
in an eminent degree^ is substantiated by the fact that 
the epidemics incident to childhood are almost unknown, 
fevers and agues never originate here. Small-pox, 
frequently brought from abroad, never spreads, al- 
though hundreds of the native population,, either from 
ignorance or prejudice, never allow themselves to be 
vaccinated, 

44 The following statistics of the town and eounty of 
Santa Barbara are taken from the United States census 
returns for this eounty for the year ending June 1, 
1870, and speak more for the heulthfulness of the 
place than anything I can add : 

" i Population of the town, 2,970. Number of births, 
131 • deaths of children under one year of age, 9 ; 
ratio of births to deaths, 14 J to 1. Total number of 
deaths, including adults for the same period, 23 j ratio 
of deaths to the whole population, 1 in 130, or .77 of 
1 per cen t. 

444 Population of the county, 7,987. Number of 
births, same period, 235 ; total number of deaths of 
children under one year of age, 15 ; ratio of births to 
deaths, 15| to one, or nearly 16 to 1. Total number 
of deaths in the county, 64, two accidental ; percentage 
of deaths to total population, 1 to 125, or .80 of 1 per 
cent. 7 

4 4 A comparison will enable the reader to form a more 
distinct idea of the smallness of this death ratio. In 
San Francisco the annual deaths per 1,000 are 21.4 ; 



GUIDE TO SANTA fcAftBARA AND VICINITY. 41 

in Sacramento, 24 5 in Boston, 24 ; in ChieagOj 24.5 ; 
in New York, 29.8 ; in Santa Barbara, 8. 

One of our leading physicians, Dr. S. B. Brinkerhoff, 
who has resided here some eighteen years, has pre- 
pared the following statement of his experience and 
observation : 

' ' I think I am prepared to speak advisedly of the 
superiority of the climate of Santa Barbara, and of thi 
very favorable advantages which this place affords as a 
resort for invalids. 

" To the peculiar location and surroundings of Santa 
Barbara I attribute, mainly, its superior healthfulness. 
The softness and general uniformity of the climate, its 
freedom from dampness and sudden changes, the op- 
portunity for diversion and recreation, render Santa 
Barbara preeminently a desirable place of resort for 
persons suffering from bronchial and pulmonary affec- 
tions. Although many persons suffering from these 
complaints have come here too late to receive any per- 
manent relief from the restorative effects of the climate, 
yet the greater portion of cases which have come under 
my observation have been permanently relieved, and 
many in a surprisingly short space of time have been 
perfectly restored to health. That the climate of Santa 
Barbara possesses elements of general healthfulness 
in an eminent degree, and perhaps, also, some latent 
peculiarities in its favor too subtile for ordinary obser- 
vation, I may instance the following facts in this con- 
nection : During the eighteen years of my active prac- 
tice here, I have never known a single case of scarlet 



42 



Gl/IDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY 



fever or diphtheria. I have known of only three cases 
of dysentery, neither of which proved fatal j and of 
only three cases of membranous croup. The epidem- 
ics and diseases incident to childhood, which in other 
parts of the country sweep away thousands of children 
annually, are here comparatively unknown. Cases of 
fever and ague I have never known originating here, 
and persons coming here afflicted with it, rarely have 
more than two or three attacks, even without the use 
of anti-periodics. I have known instances of small- 
pox at three different times. In each of the first two 
instances, occurring several years apart, the disease 
was confined to a single case, and was contracted else- 
where. Neither of these cases proved fatal. In the 
year 1864, when this disease prevailed so extensively, 
and proved so fatal throughout the state, there were 
two cases of disease contracted elsewhere and developed 
here, both of which proved fatal. Three other persons 
residing here contracted the disease from contagion 
at this time, all of whom recovered. Although no°un- 
usual precaution was taken to prevent the spread of 
the disease, it was confined to the cases mentioned. 
In the years 1869-70, when this disease, in its most 
virulent form prevailed so generally throughout the 
state, not a single case occurred at Santa Barbara, al- 
though in daily communication with other parts of' the 
state by stage and steamer . 

" The hot springs are favorably known as a resort 
for certain classes of invalids. I do not regard the use 
of these waters by any means as a panacea for all ' the 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 43 

ills which flesh is heir to, ? but for the cure of certain 
diseases they are unmistakably efficacious. I have 
known some cases which seemed to defy all powers of 
medication, cured permanently, in a surprisingly 
short time by the water of these springs advisedly 
used as a beverage and for bathing. The indiscrim- 
inate use of them may be disadvantageous, and even 
positively injurious, and before resorting to them, 
patients should always consult some physician as to 
their proper use. 

" Some invalids will find it desirable to select their 
residence while here, where they can enjoy the advan- 
tages of sea bathing. In some cases they derive more 
benefit by seeking a higher altitude, which can easily 
be obtained within a short distance of the town, where 
comfortable accomodations can be secured. The mat- 
ters of pleasant location, diet, exercise and recreation 
are all-important to the invalid, and upon a proper reg- 
ulation and observance of the same, as well as the in- 
fluences of a favorable climate, may greatly depend his 
speedy recovery. " 



u Of the thousands who have this season come to 
California for the sake of its climate, some hundreds, 
under the guidance of a lucky star, are here in this 
valley of beauty, this haven of rest. 

"We who have spent some time here in Santa Bar- 
bara can say — knowing whereof we speak — that Cali- 
fornia does afford a most desirable climate ; and many 
who come here almost prostrate with disease now pre 



44 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

sent that most convincing testimonial — a strong phy- 
sique, the firm, quick step and ruddy cheek. 

u I have felt much interest in comparing the climate 
of this valley with that of Florida, so much sought by 
invalids. So far as I have been able to compare month 
with month, the range of the thermometer here very 
nearly coincides with that of St. Augustine or Pilatka, 
Florida ; but there is this essential difference to note : 
while the climate of Florida is peculiarly wanting in 
that subtile, tonic property which gives one vim and 
vivacity, that of California is remarkable for the pres- 
ence of that quality. To describe each in a word — 
the former is enervating, the latter bracing. 

u In point of scenery and general attractiveness, the 
difference between the two countries is too great to 
admit of comparison. In place of monotonous prose 
there, we find here the most sparkling poetry of nature ; 
in lieu of sand flats, we are here greeted by rich val- 
leys and vine clad hills, with a luxuriance of vegeta- 
tion and a wealth of flowers and foliage which must 
put to everlasting shame Ponce de Leon's land, even 
with its flowery name and tropical pretensions. 

u This much of comparing and contrasting for the 
benefit of those of your readers who are still adrift in 
quest of the best climate, the most inviting places. 
During the last two years I have had occasion either to 
visit or otherwise inform myself of health resorts, both 
in Europe and in the various quarters of our own coun- 
try, and I have to say that over all of which I have 
knowledge, the palm belongs to Santa Barbara, Califor- 



OTflDE TO SANTA BAHBAHA AND VICINITY. 45 

nia. Nowhere else have we seen nature so lavish of 
her best gifts, so profuse in her bestowment of all that 
is good. Not only does she give us the best of air 
to breathe, the most thoroughly tempered breezes, the 
nearest approximation to freedom from change of tem- 
perature and from local diseases, and to soil producing 
all the grains and fruits and flowers of our continent ; 
but there is superadded for our esthetic enjoyment one 
of nature's choicest picture galleries, the walls hung 
with some of the most pleasing productions of her own 
inimitable hand. And now at Christmas time, while 
in accordance with a custom that should never die, ten 
thousand fair hands are busied entwining evergreens 
and wreathing flowers for church and home, this Queen 
of Artists has freshened and adorned her gallery here 
as if especially for the festive days in honor of her 
author. As we feast our eyes upon the hills around us 
here all clothed in the freshest and richest of green, and 
breathe in the plenteous perfume which fills street and 
common, no small measure of imagination is needed to 
realize fairly that our homes, not only those far up the 
New England coast, or on the shores of the great lakes, 
but those on the borders of the ' Sunny South/ as 
well, are locked in ice or covered with snow. Did 
not the telegraph and mail bring the story to us, sure- 
ly we should never dream it here." — Correspondence of 
the Cincinnati Gazette, 



" San Francisco, March 10, 1872. 
u A friend and neighbor of my own, consumptive 



46 GLllDje TO SANTA BARBARA AND VlCINITr. 

for some years, and struggling for his life in a winter 
residence for some two years at Nice and Mentone, and 
a third year at Aiken f came last October to Southern 
California, He had been * losing ground/ as he 
said ? and as his appearance showed , for two years, and 
last summer suffered so severely from night sweats? 
sleeplessness, continual coughing and lack of appetite, 
that it was doubtful whether he would live through the 
winter anywhere $ and it was rather in desperation 
than with much hope of a prolonged or comfortable 
life f that he made ready for the journey across the con- 
tinent with his family. In January I was standing in 
the doorway of a hotel at Los Angeles, when I saw a 
wagon drive up j the driver jumped out, held out his 
hand to me 1 and sung out in a hearty voice, 4 How do 
you do 1 J It was my consumptive friend, but a 
changed man. He had just driven sixty miles in two 
days, over a rough road, from San Buenaventura ; he 
walked with me several miles on the evening we met $ 
he ate heartily and slept well, enjoyed his life and 
coughed hardly at all. It was an amazing change to 
come about in three months, and in a man so far gone 
in consumption as he was. 

i k I think I shall be doing a service therefore to many 
invalids, if I give you here some details concerning 
these places, but little known as yet in the East, which 
are now so accessible, and whose beneficial influences 
upon diseases of the throat and lungs are undoubtedly 
remarkable. 

" San Diego, Santa Barbara and San Bernardino are 



XfOTDH TO SATSTTA BARBARA AND VIClNlTV. 4/ 

the three points most favorable for consumptives and 
persons subject to throat difficulties, 

u Santa Barbara is on many accounts the pleasantest 
of all the three places I have named; and it has an 
advantage in this that one may there choose his climate, 
within a distance of threi or four mites of the town. 
It has a very peculiar situation* -* * * The town 
and its vicinity have thus a remarkably equal climate, 
I have before me a number of reports of temperature 
and could overwhelm you if I liked with Igures^ tables 
and statistics concerning the whole coast ; but these 
records are almost altogether of mean temperature for 
a week., month or year. Now what an invalid suffers 
most from is not recorded in such tables : I mean the 
daily extremes, If the day is very warm and the even- 
ing suddenly chilly and cold, that makes a bad climate 
for weakly persons. Now both Santa Barbara and San 
Diego are remarkably free from such sudden and great 
changes, and I think there is no doubt that Santa Bar- 
bara has the most equable climate, in this sense as well 
as all others, on this coast. 

u Persons who come to California for the winter 
should bring their winter clothing. You do not need a 
shawl or an overcoat if you are exercising, but in driv* 
ing they are necessary. You can sit out of doors almost 
every day, either to read or write, or in any other oc* 
cupation, for there are but few rainy days, and it no 
sooner stops raining than the sun shines out most bril* 
liantly and kindly. I do not think there were five 
days in Santa Barbara . in December, January and 



48 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY, 

February f in which the tender est invalid could not pass 
the greater part of the day out of doors with pleasure 
and benefit* But in the evening you will sit by a wood 
fire— mostly with the doors and windows open — and at 
night you sleep under blankets very comfortably. The 
constant or almost uninterrupted brightness of the 
skies has, I suspect, a good deal to do with the health- 
ful influences of the climate. The Southern counties 
have but little rain. There are no gloomy days. Oc- 
casionally there it a fog in the morning, but it is not 
a cold fog— rather dry and warm, like the Newport 
fogs, 

" Living at the hotels is very reasonable — from $10 
to $14 per week $ fires are an extra charge, but you 
should secure a room with a fire place or stove. 
Horses can be bought in Santa Barbara for from $20 
to $50 ; and for children there are donkeys for which 
you pay from $5 to $10. You find at all of the hotels 
good beds, and plain but sufficient and various food. 
Santa Barbara has the advantages of pleasant society 
and excellent schools. It is, in fact, a cozy nest of 
New England and Western New York people, many 
of whom originally came here for their health, and 
remain because they are charmed with the climate. 
It has a number of pleasant drives, and the old Span- 
ish part of the town is an agreeable novelty to stran- 
gers. 

" We do not expect * to find in Southern Cali- 
fornia yet, artistically finished pleasure resorts. 
Such as they are, however, the places I have named 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 49 

deserve the visit of persons suffering from throat or 
lung disease, and it will be no small addition to their 
merits that they can be reached without a voyage across 
the Atlantic, and that they present for the amusement 
of the visitor many novel and curious phases of life. 77 
— Charles Nordlioff in New York Tribune. 



This is a matter of all-important interest to the suf- 
ferer from lung troubles. To say a place has a mean 
annual temperature of 51° like New York, or 60° like 
Santa Barbara, proves nothing whatever to the health- 
ful evenness of the climate. Nor does it help matters 
very much to give monthly means, showing that New 
York oscillates between 30°, the mean of February, 
and 73°, that of July, while Santa Barbara averages 
55° and 68° for the same months, as was the case last 
year. At the East a variation of 30° or 40° between 
two consecutive days, or even during the same day, is 
by no means uncommon, — here it is unheard of. In 
order to fully test a climate the temperature must be 
known for every day of the year and compared with 
the enormous diurnal variations of some familiar place, 
such as New York city. In view of the great impor- 
tance of this exhibit to intelligent physicians and a 
large class of invalids, we have compiled the follow- 
ing table, showing the temperature of every day from 
July 1, 1871, to June 30, 1872, inclusive, as taken 



50 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 



from three daily readings of the thermometer in this 
town : 



1 
2 

3 

4 
5 

6 

7, 
8, 
9 
10, 
11 
12. 
13. 
14. 
15, 
16, 
17. 
18. 
19. 
20. 
21, 
22, 
23, 
24, 
25, 
26. 
27. 
23, 
29. 
30. 
31, 





> 
99 


W 

►a 


O 
o 


o 
< 


b 

<t> 
o 


en 


CD 


d 


> 


1 










• 


* 




* 


1—1 




63 


69 


67 


71 


70 


49 


54 


56 


53 


57 


60 


65 


68 


67 


83* 


61 


52 


49 


55 


59 


57 


63 


66 


68 


68 


77* 


57 


52 


50 


58 


59 


60 


61 


67 


68 


71 


69 


58 


55 


51 


59 


58 


55 


61 


67 


67 


69 


65 


55 


54 


52 


55 


57 


58 


66 


67 


66 


70 


63 


55 


58 


53 


59 


58 


54 


60 


65 


70 


66 


65 


53 


51 


53 


53 


61 


53 


66 


68 


68 


66 


61 


56 


51 


54 


54 


61 


56 


67 


66 


69 


66 


61 


56 


55 


53 


61 


60 


54 


63 


67 


69 


66 


63 


58 


53 


48 


60 


62 


58 


59 


68 


68 


70 


65 


52 


53 


50 


58 


60 


55 


61 


67 


68 


66 


61 


55 


55 


50 


52 


63 


59 


62 


70 


67 


67 


62 


55 


58 


53 


55 


54 


53 


61 


73 


66 


66 


66 


50 


57 


55 


55 


54 


58 


57 


72 


70 


65 


59 


57 


56 


53 


52 


60 


58 


62 


71 


72 


64 


69 


59 


55 


53 


55 


58 


56 


61 


70 


78* 


61 


71 


61 


55 


52 


57 


64 


53 


60 


67 


79* 


62 


71 


55 


56 


52 


61 


57 


52 


67 


67 


75* 


65 


64 


59 


56 


52 


60 


52 


58 


62 


71 


70 


70 


62 


■60 


58 


56 


59 


55 


58 


61 


73 


70 


64 


62 


59 


54 


57 


55 


57 


64 


59 


.74 


70 


65 


65 


63 


52 


54 


54 


56 


62 


59 


73 


72 


66 


63 


59 


53 


54 


52 


54 


63 


61 


72 


72 


62 


59 


62 


57 


48 


50 


54 


59 


63 


67 


68 


61 


61 


61 


56 


43 


51 


56 


61 


65 


64 


67 


61 


62 


57 


53 


44 


51 


58 


61 


65 


69 


67 


62 


61 


55 


54 


47 


49 


59 


62 


65 


72 


66 


63 


63 


54 


57 


51 


52 


58 


61 


64 


69 


69 


61 


60 


52 


56 


49 


50 


56 


62 


65 


68 


69 


62 


58 


48 


54 


52 


... 


55 


60 


67 


70 


68 




61 


... 


55 


52 




54 




63 


68 5 


69.5 


65.3 


64.6 


56.7 


54.5 


51.5 


55.1 


57.5 


57.9 


62 5 



58 
65 
65 
64 
73 
68 
62 
64 
65 
64 
63 > 
67 
67 
67 
63 
65 
63 
67 
74* 
80* 
82 * 
87* 
78* 
69 
*67 
68 
71 
67 
69 
74 



The lower line shows the mean of each month. The 
mean of the entire year is 61°. On the days marked 
with an asterisk the thermometer was abnormally high 
on account of mountain fires back of the town. 

Warmest day of the year, June 22 87° 

Warmest days, except for mountain fires, July 22, 1871, and 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 51 

June 30, 1872 74° 

Coldest day of the year, January 25 43° 

Divided into seasons as in the Atlantic states the 
temperature of the last two years, during which records 
have been kept, was as follows : 

1870-1. 1871-2. 

Mean of spring...., 59.8° 59.3° 

Mean of summer 68.7° 68.8° 

Mean of autumn ..65 ° 62.2° 

Mean of winter 53.3° 53.7° 

Yearly mean 61.2° 61 ° 

It will be observed that, taking one year with 
another, the thermometrical range is almost identical. 



The main road approaching Santa Barbara from the 
north, crossing the Santa Ynez mountains, is very ro- 
mantic. It winds up steep mountains by zig-zags and 
crosses sandy creeks and marshy valleys until it reaches 
the Gaviota pass — a natural chasm about sixty feet 
wide through the lofty range reaching within a mile of 
the sea. The sides of this pass are nearly perpendic- 
ular walls of solid rock. From the pass the road 
winds at the base of these mountains for nearly twenty 
miles along the sea beach. It is a delightful trip in 
the summer— the white crested billows of the Pacific 
curling and seething about the horses' feet ; and the 
cool sea breeze, how refreshings — after leaving the hot 
and dusty roads over the mountains. 

After passing the immense estate of Bos Pueblos the 



52 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

traveler rides for miles through a fine rural settlement 
of small farms, with neat little painted dwellings sur- 
rounded by orange, lemon, almond, walnut, fig and 
other fruit and shade trees, with well kept front yards 
filled with shrubs, vines, flowers, lawns and other 
tasteful adornments. In the centre of this cheerful 
line of pleasant houses stands a neat and comfortable 
school house with green blinds, showing the right sort 
of spirit in the people who are settling the country. 

Every kind of scenery may be found here, from the 
level plain to the inaccessible peak ; cultivated farms, 
red-wood forests and dreary wastes ; little valleys sunk 
into the earth, down into which one looks from the 
broader level, as into another world ; where the giant 
sycamores twist themselves toward the upper air, and 
lithe limbed deer browse in the cool shadows. 

Running brooks and green summer fields we cannot 
have ; but in the rainy season six months of brilliant 
green covers the whole face of nature from sea to 
mountain top. Instead of the snows and frozen ground 
of the Atlantic states the eye is charmed with the most 
inviting of pictures. A correspondent of the New 
York Evening Mail writes as follows : " The hills at 
this season are carpeted with the richest green ; the 
mountains loom up grandly with ever changing shad- 
ows, the clear atmosphere marking distinctly their out- 
line against the blue of the heavens over them ; the air 
is fragrant with the perfume of flowers and blossoming 
fruit trees. Old Ocean beats tirelessly against the 
shore with a gentle, peaceful melody. The waters of 



CTIDE TO 'SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 53 

the Pacific stretch far and wide,, blue under a cloudless 
sky, the faint outline of islands rising from them. 
Here are fine mountain and ocean scenery— always a 
rare combination— bathing, boating, fishing, hunting 
and driving, no shivering from cold, no depressing heat, 
fruits, flowers, with the purest air and the brightest 
sunshine," A writer in the San Jose Mercury thus re- 
fers to the view from the old Mission : u We paused, 
as we stood once more on the steps outside, struck with 
the beauty of the picture which spread out like a dream 
before us. The gentle slope to the town * then the 
white and various colored houses nestled down in xheSr 
embracing trees $ farther, the sparkling waters of the 
ocean, blue and languid in the sunlight, while far out 
toward the horizon's verge were the Santa Barbara Is- 
lands, lying misty and dim between the sea and sky. 
On our right, the country with its hills and trees and 
foliage ; on our left, the bold, rugged mountains of the 
Santa Barbara range. What a lovely picture ! beyond 
the power of pen to describe. We rode slowly back to 
our hotel, filled with its glory. 77 



Game of various kinds abounds in the county. The 
famous grizzly may be met in the mountains, if any 
one desires such an interview. Such meetings are not 
apt to be wholly satisfactory except to the grizzly, as 
he usually closes the proceedings by eating the inter- 
viewer. Hare are numerous, where the sas:e bush 



04 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

grows to afford them shelter. Rabbits are found every- 
where. Wild ducks are abundant in the winter, on 
the miniature ponds in the fields, caused by the rains. 
Quail are plentiful in the foot hills. There are many 
of the small brown or " cinnamon " bear in the moun- 
tains, and also the California lion, a species of panther. 
Beer may even be seen grazing among the cattle as feed 
and water grow scarce in the late summer. The 
mountain streams offer fine trout to disciples of Isaak 
Walton, and there are as good fish in the sea as ever 
were caught for those who would angle more luxurious- 
ly. The taking of game is regulated by law, which 
prohibits the killing of deer except between August 
1st and January 1st ; doves except between September 
15th and March 15th ; quails except between September 
15th and March 15 th ; ducks except between September 
15th and March 15th ; trout except between May 1st 
and October 1st. 



Nearly all letters of inquiry ask particularly in re- 
gard to irrigation, its uses, expense, etc. In reply we 
say that irrigation is not necessary in that portion of 
the county west of the Kincon hill, for any crop except 
strawberries, and is not practiced here. Below Ven- 
tura, farmers irrigate their crops from ditches or canals 
several miles long, running parallel with the rivers, or 
from artesian wells. In the western part strawberries 
and flowers are improved by summer watering, but 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 55 

nothing else— unless it be the streets. Deep plowing 
and occasional stirring of the soil do more than irriga- 
tion ; and most of our farmers get large crops without 
either. Grapes and other fruits have a richer flavor 
without water. 



Between the Santa Ynez and Santa Susanna ranges* 
and at their base along the coast, there are a number 
of exceedingly beautiful and fertile valleys, most of 
them being more or less under cultivation* Between 
the Santa Ynez and San Rafael mountains is a broad 
extent of excellent land, watered by the Santa Ynez 
river, and available for any of the purposes of farming. 
This river traverses the county for 100 miles, emptying 
into the Pacific. The San Buenaventura rises near the 
centre and flows southward to the sea. The Santa 
Clara flows westward across the county, having its 
mouth near Ventura. The Santa Maria is quite a 
stream and forms the northern boundary of the county 
for over 100 miles. It sinks into the sand in several 
places near its mouth. There is but little timber ex* 
cept oak, willow and sycamore, which grow on the 
plains or in the valleys. The hills are covered with 
grass or wild oats during the winter and spring, fur* 
nishing nutritious pasturage for sheep and cattle 
through the entire year. In the eastern portions are 
forests of pine and red- wood. East of Santa Barbara 
is a nearly level plain averaging two miles in width 



56 GftrrBE to santa Barbara and vicinity. 

and fifteen in length, flanked by fertile foot hills, r 
the most part under careful cultivation. Some of ta- 
nnest barley raised in the state is produced in these 
valleys of Montecito and Carpentaria, and most kinds 
of fruit are cultivated. The terrace west of town is 
several miles wide and reaches to Point Concepcion. 
Saticoy and Santa Clara valleys are in the eastern part 
of the county, and have a coast line of sixteen miles, 
extending inland about forty miles : they also are very 
fertile. These valleys produce immense quantities of 
wild mustard : wild bees are very numerous, and yield 
a good deal of honey and wax. The silk worm thrives 
here finely* Almost everywhere water is obtained, at 
moderate depth, and wind mills can be employed if de- 
sired. This suffices for the family, the cattle and the 
gardens of the farmer ; his grain crops do not want 
summer water nor his fruit trees. A one-year-old hive 
of bees will often produce thirty pounds of liquid honey 
and two pounds of clean wax. At no distant time 
honey and wax will become part of our exports. 

The canons are peculiar, often running up into the 
mountains, and branching off in unexpected directions, 
opening out fertile tracts where only hills were looked 
for. This feature gives a greater extent of available 
land than is at first apparent ; and here, as everywhere 
else, it becomes one not to be deceived by first appear- 
ances, since here no one is safe from a greats surprise. 

Much of our roughest land will in time become the 
most valuable, as it is being demonstrated that the 
hills are the best adapted to grape culture, and scarcely 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 5/ 

any hill is too precipitous for growing vines. Most of 
the arable land is gently rolling. C. L. Brace, in the 
New West, says : u In a material point of view the 
sunny and fertile region about Santa Barbara is un- 
doubtedly the most desirable part of the state for an 
immigrant ; that is, land in proportion to its cost will 
yield more to the cultivator. 77 There is an opening to 
immigration now from the fact that several of the large 
estates are being broken up. Sheep raising can be car- 
ried on here to great profit. But the great wealth of 
the region must always lie in its fruits, and whatever 
of these can be condensed or preserved for market will 
always pay. In the Santa Clara valley are several 
large ranches belonging to Thos. A. Scott, of Phila- 
delphia, aggregating a quarter million acres now offered 
for sale in small farms. The coast and valley portions 
of the entire county are destined to be divided into 
small tracts suitable for orchard, vineyard or tillage, 
and to pass into the hands of wine or fruit growers. 
If these are enterprising Eastern men or thrifty Ger- 
mans their reward will be both sure and abundant. 

The country is best of all adapted for men of small 
capital, who are farmers or vine growers. For such it 
offers great inducements. When you buy a farm you 
buy clear land. For ten months out of twelve the new 
settler can camp in a tent : he need be in no haste to 
build barns ; he has no forest to clear ; he has only to 
fence his ground and begin plowing. Feed is ready for 
his stock on all the hills. His land, which costs any- 
where from $2 to $25 an acre, at once begins to rise in 



58 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

value with cultivation. All the luxuries of farm life 
he can have speedily. In three years he can enjoy a 
variety of fruits from his own orchards, and his vege- 
tables are such as are seen nowhere else in the world. 
He can get good stock cheap and raise it easily. He 
may try sheep raising on the brown hills, or keep a 
dairy rancho, or breed fowls for market, or raise hops, 
or flax, or the castor bean, or almost any fruit or 
cereal. No cultivator in the world has so many dif- 
ferent products to turn to. 

As soon as the first rains of December have moistened 
the soil every plow is set to work. The planting season 
is long, extending to April, during which time rain 
does not interfere with work more than during the sum- 
mer at the East. Wheat and barley are commonly 
sown for hay and cut before the heads fill. Farmers 
are not obliged to work hard half the summer to pro- 
vide food for carrying their stock over the winter 5 they 
save three-fourths of the expense of fuel needed at the 
East ; they have no cattle stables to clean ; the absence 
of winter lightens the work and exposure of women ; 
vegetables may be had fresh from the garden most or 
all of the year ; fruit is plenty and cheap. Fowls pick 
up their living at all times. Tree growth is very rapid 
and has slight interruption in winter. Trees grow as 
much in four years as in the Atlantic states in eight. 
Flowers will grow about the house continually. The 
wages of farm hands are $20 to $30 a month the year 
round, or $30 to $40 in harvest, with board and lodg- 
ing. Wheat, oats and barley are threshed on the field, 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 59 

and left there till wanted. Potatoes stay in the ground 
long after ripening without harm. Thus the farmer 
saves the expense of large barns and the carrying of 
his crops to and fro. He is not hurried by short 
seasons or fear of rain, and he needs fewer hands. His 
wheat is dry and glutinous, keeping sweet long, and 
making the best flour in the world. Nor does he need 
to put away much food for his cattle. A quarter acre 
of beets, replanted as used, supports a cow through the 
year. Work horses have barley and hay, but sheep 
are never fed ; market cattle fatten in the pastures and 
horses not at work pick up their living on the commons, 
both in winter and summer. The alfalfa does well for 
pigs, cows, and even plow horses, and bears enormous 
crops. It yields from six to eight cuttings a year. 
The soil gives a much greater product here than in 
older states. The farmer often takes fifty, sixty, even 
eighty bushels of wheat from an acre, and sometimes 
forty bushels of u volunteer v where he has not sown, 
and can even gather forty bushels of volunteer barley 
for three years without sowing or cultivating. 

iL One cannot help noticing that the forms of the wo- 
men who have been here long are more full and robust 
than with us, while the children are universally chubby, 
fat and red-cheeked. I do not remember seeing a sin- 
gle weakly child. All animals also fatten easily here. 
Most of the country is so fit for a garden that it is 
wasteful to use it for a cattle or sheep range, or for 
field crops. The careful culture of small tracts will 
pay extraordinary profits. In fact I do not know a 



60 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

country better adapted to farming as we understand 
the word at the East. The seasons are such as to play 
into the farmer's hands ; the soil is rich and easily 
worked, and everything grows marvelously. The eu- 
calyptus (an Australian evergreen) has made twenty 
feet in a year (I have seen one eight years old which 
was seventy-five feet high aud two and a-half feet in 
diameter at the base). I spent the 22d of February at 
a pic-nic on one of these oak-covered plains, green as 
our finest pasture in June, with a lovely lake in the 
centre of a fair, smooth field, with skies so bright and 
air so soft that a baby slept on the ground. It had 
rained hard over night, but we sat on the ground to 
eat our luncheon. 7 ' — Chas. Nordhoff in Harper's Mag- 
azine. 

The practical farmer can commence operations as- 
sured that a few years spent as industriously as is nec- 
essary in farming elsewhere, will have surrounded him 
with all the necessaries and many of the luxuries of 
life, make him secure from want, and the owner of a 
farm, orchard and garden that will afford him and his 
family a competency, and a comfortable inheritance to 
his children. Society is changing. Agriculture is as- 
suming its proper position, and all things have a more 
settled air. The country grows more attractive. The 
marvelous natural resources of the coast are becoming 
apparent, and the richness and bounty of its climate 
and soil are gaining due appreciation. 

u Nothing but the ignorance which prevails in our 
Eastern states of this great treasure in our own terri- 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 61 

tory, could have kept a populous immigration, ere this, 
from settling and cultivating these favored valleys and 
hillsides."— The New West, by C. X. Brace. 



Most houses are of wood, and of the kind called 
"Balloon" or * 'Chicago" frames, fastened together with 
nails and with no upright posts larger than 2x4 inches. 
These are the strongest kind of wooden buildings. 
For the farmer in haste to build and to build cheaply, an 
adobe house is by no means to be despised. It can be 
built by natives working at $20 a month, of common 
earth, saving the price of lumber, skilled labor and trans* 
portation. The walls are two to three feet thick and 
the house is very comfortable,being cool in summer and 
warm in winter. They are roofed with tiles, shingles 
or "shakes." A comfortable frame house of four 
rooms and a piazza, for a small family, painted inside 
and out, and finished with cloth and paper instead of 
plaster, can be put up in town for $500. On a farm 
paint, cloth and plaster can be dispensed with for a 
while, when economy is necessary, and the cost will be 
much reduced. Dwellings are necessary mainly for 
privacy, and very slight, cheap structures are as good 
as the warm and more costly ones of colder climates. 
As a rule farmers live in small and cheap houses, the 
climate — which permits children to play out of doors 
for at least 300 days in the year, and makes the piazza 
or the neighboring shade tree pleasanter than a room, 



62 GUIDE f SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY, 

in winter or summer — being probably to blame for it,; 
The dwelling is a less important part of the farm than 
at the Eastc A cellar is not necessary, nor are two 
stories. A long range of rooms with broad and com- 
fortable piazzas is the best,, copied after the adobes of 
the natives, and very convenient for doing housework. 
Our fences are cheap, durable and tight. Poles are cut 
in the chapparal f seven or eight feet long by natives at 
$8 per 1,000. A plow runs a furrow along the pro- 
posed line offence, the poles are set in the trench close 
together and tied at a height of five feet to a pole running 
horizontally, the furrow is filled up with dirt again and 
the fence is done. The expense is about seventy- five 
cehts per rod. 



In no other part of the world do fruit trees grow so 
rapidly, bear so early, so regularly and so abund- 
antly, and produce fruit of such large size. Nor is 
there any other country where so great a variety of 
fruit can be produced in high excellence. In the mat- 
ter of flavor our apples, peaches and strawberries are 
perhaps inferior to Eastern fruit; in the flavor of other 
species we are at least equal to other countries. The 
pear, plum, apricot, grape and olive are peculiarly 
healthy and productive as compared with the same 
fruits elsewhere. All kinds of fruit trees are trained 
low. This causes earlier bearing — a matter of import- 
ance where the interest on money is so high; the trunk 



OTIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 63 

is shaded from too much sun, and the earth about the 
roots is kept moist. They are free from the curculio, 
They are as large at two years old as in New York at 
three or four* Instances of exceptional growth are 
without parallel. Cherry trees have grown to be four- 
teen feet high in one year; pear trees ten feet; peach 
trees to have trunks two to three inches in diameter; 
all from buds on yearling stocks. They begin to fruit 
in about half the time required on the Atlantic. The 
plum is destined to be prominent among fruits. The 
fig bears in two years from the slip and produces 
abundantly, two crops a year, and is a large and very 
handsome shade tree with its dense foliage. The 
almond and English walnut thrive in perfection in this 
county, but not much further north ; a slight frost de- 
stroys the almond. The citron does admirably and 
bears fruit its fourth year. It will be found exceed- 
ingly lucrative. The lime fruits in five years from the 
seed and has an unlimited market. A peculiar effect 
of this climate is to cause early and prolific bearing in 
fruit trees. They often contain more fruit than their 
trunks can support. Trees an inch and a-half in diam- 
eter at the ground, are loaded with large and handsome 
pears, peaches, etc. Where so little labor brings so 
large and speedy return, every farmer provides him* 
self with a. fruit orchard. Here the buds are not killed 
by sudden frost, the fruit is not blighted by sharp 
wind, nor mildewed by dampness, nor bored and de- 
stroyed by insects, nor gnarled and twisted by the vio- 
lent changes and many freaks of a churlish climate. 



64 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND TICINITT. 

The trees have twice as much growing time in a year 
as at the East* Strawberries raised last year in the 
Montecito valley paid at the rate of $1,200 an acre. 
Every farmer may have in his grounds peaches, apricots, 
apples, pears, pomegranates, cherries, figs, quinces, 
plums, all the berries, melons, cactus fruit, guavas and 
the r>alm. Besides these are six fruits — the orange, 
lemon, almond, citron, olive and English walnut — for 
which the market extends over the whole United 
States, while the area in which they can be successfully 
cultivated is quite limited. The amount of land in the 
world suitable to these trees is very small, and there is 
no danger of over supply. Twenty acres cultivated in 
nut and fruit trees, and in garden, will support a family 
in comfort if not in affluence. 

If there be any one vegetable growth which more than 
any other finds a congenial home in this region, and which 
nearly every one plants, it is the grape vine. It grows 
better on the hillsides than in the valleys and is of fine 
growth and flavor without irrigation. It stands the 
long dry summer better than any other plant. The 
average number of vines to the acre is 600, which pro- 
duce annually 300 gallons of wine and twenty of 
brandy from the residuum. In appearance the vine in 
fruit resembles an umbrella spread out. Stakes are 
soon dispensed with; the vine acquires great size of 
stem and supports itself. It bears the second year. A 
man can plant a vineyard which in six years will 
bring him in $200 to $400 in wine, or even more in 
raisins. The ease with which the grape is cultivated 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 65 

its immense yield of fruit, and the readiness with 
which it can be marketed in different forms, combine 
to make it a leading branch of industry. Every farm 
contains a vineyard of greater or less extent. The 
principal variety now grown is the Mission grape, intro- 
duced by the Padres, but the finest foreign varieties do 
equally well, and are receiving more attention of late. 
It is on record that one acre in this state has produced 
fourteen tons of grapes. The cheapest land in the 
county is proving to be the best for vine culture, 
namely, the steep hillsides never yet cultivated. Two 
hundred varieties of grape?: are raised in the state. 
Our vines bear twice as much fruit as elsewhere. 
The crop never fails. They are grown from cuttings 
and with little care. All the twigs are cut off yearly, 
leaving a bare stalk with three or four buds. The vine 
grown for raisins will be found to pay here five times 
the profit per acre of wheat, and it is as cheaply culti- 
vated. The process of making raisins is very simple. 
They are partially dried in the sun and afterwards un- 
der cover. The true raisin grape of Malaga has been 
introduced here and does well. The manufacture of 
raisins ought to be as profitable as that of wine and far 
more beneficial to the state. 

We close this subject with extracts from a letter of 
Charles Nordhoff to the New York Tribune : 

u Santa Barbara county has a long, narrow strip of 
sea coast, fronting south, which is believed to be pe- 
culiarly fitted for the culture of the almond, which in 
Los Angeles is found to be sometimes hurt by frost. 



06 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

u The custom is to plant 108 trees to the acre. They 
begin to bear at three years from the bud ; and at five 
years may be expected to yield twelve pounds to the 
tree, or say 1,200 pounds per acre, which, at twenty 
cents per pound, would give $240 per acre. They bear 
for a number of years : at ten years, I am told, may be 
counted on for twenty pounds to the tree, which would 
give $400 to the acre. No disease troubles the tree 
here, but the squirrel and gopher destroy it when it is 
young. These however are easily driven out by poison 
and perseverance ; and one man's labor suffices to keep 
in order twenty or even thirty acres of trees. 

4i The olive grows slowly at first, begins to bear at 
four years, under favorable circumstances, but does not 
yield a full crop until the tenth, or even the twelfth 
year. It should then return an average of* twenty-five 
gallons of olives per tree. Sixty trees are planted to 
the acre. The olives are sold here at this time for 
sixty cents per gallon in the orchard, and the few olive 
groves now in full bearing about here, at that rate, arc 
worth, gross, $900 per acre per annum. No doubt as 
new groves come to bear, the price will go down ; but 
there is here an immense margin, as you will perceive. 
The olives of this state, when carefully pickled, are far 
superior to those we get from France or Spain. They 
are of moderate size, but very plump, juicy, and full- 
flavored. Pickled olives fetch here"seventy-five cents 
per gallon. I am told by proprietors of olive orchards 
that it is more profitable to make the fruit into oil than 
to pickle it. From five to seven gallons of ripe olives 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 6/ 

go to one gallon of oil, and that is worth now $5. The 
machinery for pressing the oil is very simple. I think 
there is no finer object than a grove of these healthful, 
finely-grown trees. There are several young orchards 
about here, and Santa Barbara is likely to become the 
centre of this culture. The olive is not particular as 
to soil, and it does not here need irrigation. The 
gopher eats the roots of the young tree, but this is its 
only enemy. That you may not think I have exagger- 
ated the olive tree's productiveness, I will add that one 
tree in this town, now thirty years old, bore $48 worth 
of olives for three years in succession • another at 
twelve years bore over two barrels of olives. 

u The English walnut shows itself as a stately, mag- 
nificent tree, with clean, grayish bark, and wide- 
spreading branches. It is, like our own black walnut, 
a tree of slow growth, and does not begin to bear until 
it is seven or eight years of age. In twelve years with 
thorough culture it bears from fifty to seventy -five 
pounds of nuts ; at fifteen years from 100 to 160 
pounds 5 thirty trees may stand on an acre, and it is 
customary here to plant almond trees between the rows 
of walnuts, which pay the cost of cultivation and a 
handsome profit, and are cut down when the walnuts 
begin to cover the ground. The nuts sold this year for 
twelve and a half cents per pound, in Los Angeles. A 
little arithmetic will tell you that at 100 pounds to the 
tree, which for an orchard fifteen years old would be, 
everybody tells me, an under estimate, the yield would 
be $375 per acre. The only expense is the cost of cul- 



68 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

tivating, and one man could easily care for thirty acres. 
It is asserted that the tree is absolutely free from dis- 
ease or enemies in this state ; it needs no pruning, and 
it may be safely transplanted when three years old, so 
that the planter would get a crop in seven years. At 
twenty years trees have borne 250 pounds of nuts. 
Two English walnut trees near Santa Barbara, thirty 
years old, have yielded $50 worth of nuts each per 
annum for several years past. The citron, which bears 
in four or five years, is also a profitable plant. The 
lemon, which becomes a stately, far-spreading tree, 
bears in ten years a valuable crop. 

u I have found a large number of men of small for- 
tunes, as well as farmers, deliberately giving money 
and time to the formation of orange, lemon and nut 
orchards. They say, ' We will work and wait for 
eight or ten years, in order that at the end we shall 
have a small fortune, to make our latter years easy j J 
and if a man may in ten years from twenty acres se- 
cure himself a regular income of ten or even five thou- 
sand dollars per annum, with but trifling labor and 
care, these persons would seem to be wise. * * * 
After a thorough examination I believe Southern Cali- 
fornia to be the best region in the whole United States 
for farmers." 



California is probably the best country in the world, 
except Australia, for raising sheep. Nowhere do they 



GUIDE IX) SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 69 

30 thrive arid multiply with so little care ; and no 
fleeces of similar breeds are so heavy. Here in the 
mountain pastures they roam and feed themselves the 
year round. Sheep love length of range, and they have 
it here ; a dry soil and climate is their preference, and 
in few countries is the dry season so protracted. The 
cost of keeping sheep is so small and the increase so 
great that it is a very money-making business. Most 
of the diseases contracted elsewhere are unknown here. 
One third of the wool of California is a second crop, 
clipped in autumn. 

The ewes when properly cared for increase a hundred 
per cent, every year. The cost of keeping large bands 
is estimated at from thirty- seven to fifty cents per head 
annually, exclusive of interest on the land used for 
pasturage. The wool of a good sheep pays twice the 
cost of keeping ; and the wool and lamb together of a 
fine-blooded ewe are worth eight or ten times tne cost. 



This is probably about the same, or if anything a 
little less here than at the East. Flour is much 
cheaper here than in New York ; meats half the price 
or less ; clothing about the same ; but the high price 
of labor and the extravagant habits of the people raise 
all small expenses. The measure of the economy of a 
people is the subdivision of money. In Germany one 
gets change to one-tenth of a cent ; here the lowest 
change is the dime or u bit." Books retail at Eastern 



TO GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 



rates. It costs more to build a house here than one of 
equal finish at the East because of the higher prices of 
labor and lumber, the distance from planing mills, etc. 
To aid the comparison we append a table from a 
special report by Edward Young, Chief of Bureau of 
Statistics, Washington, D, C. ? showing the average re- 
tail prices of provisions, etc., in 1869, in New England 
and California, To this we have added a column 
showing present retail prices here : 

Av'ge price Av'ge price Av'ge price 

InNewEng- in Caiifor- inSantaBar- 

land, 1869, ma, 1869, bara, 1872. 

i?lour, superfine, per bbl. f 9 53 $ 5 71 $ 7 00 

Eye, perbbl 6 72 1100 , r 

Corn meal, per bbl.......... 3 58 8 02 6 00 

Beef, roast, per lb... 20 16 12^ 

Veal, cutlet, per lb ........ ' 22 17 10 

Mutton, leg, per lb 16 13 10 

Chop, per lb....... 19 14 10 

Pork, fresh, per lb.... 18 14 ,10 

Salted, per lb 22 15 — 

Bacon, per lb 21 20 20 

Sausages, per lb 22 20 12 J£ 

Lard, per lb......... 24 20 20 

Codfish, dry, per lb......... 9 17 12 

Mackerel, pickled, per lb. 14 19 9 

Butter, per lb.. 45 47 40 

Cheese, per lb ...J 21 25 20 

Potatoes, per bush 66 75 90 

Rice, per lb 13 12 10 

Beans, per lb...... 13 08 04 

Milk, per qt 07 12 10 

Eggs, per doz 33 48 35 

Tea, Oolong, per lb 1 17 1 04 1 00 

Coffee, Rio, green, per lb. 31 24 25 

Sugar, good brown, per lb 14 14 I3>i 



13UID£ TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 7 



Av'ge price Av'ge price Av'ge price 
inNewEng- in Califor- inSantaBar- 
land, 1869, nia, 1869, bara, 1872. 

Sugar, yellow C „.„;« 15 16 14 

CoffeeB 1? 17 15H 

Molasses, N.O., per gal... 103 116 75 • 

Syrup., ...,.,..,. 1 15 1 25 1 00 

Soap, common, per lb...,„ 12 10 09 

Starch, per lb..... 16 22 18 

Wood, hard, per cord...... 6 96 6 50 6 00 

Coal oil, per gal 48 100 75 

Shirtings, bleached 4*4, 

standard quality ,per yd 19 20 18 
Sheetings, bleached 9-4 

standard quality ,per yd 43 

Cotton flannel, yer yd.... 27 

Tickings, per yd.. 35 

Prints, Merrimac, per yd 15 

Mousseline de laines, 1 ^ yd 23 

Satinets, medium, per yd 69 

Boots, men's heavy, *$pr 4 66 



48 


45 


25 


25 


33 


30 


13 


12# 


26 


25 


82 


..> 


5 10 


o 00 



Three miles southeast of Carpentaria the sea shore is 
covered with a thick deposit of asphaltum, which 
oozes from the slaty bank in the form of thick tar, cov 
ering the beach and concreting the sand and pebbles as 
hard as rock, running under the sea in places where 
the surface has become hard and smooth. For mam 
miles along the coast the sea is covered with an irides 
cent film of oil which finds its way to the surface at 
numerous points, escaping probably from the out crop- 
ping edges of the strata. There are numerous oil 
springs and petroleum deposits in the county. Sub 



72 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 



phur and salt are also found, and some gold and copper* 
in the valley of the Santa Ynez. 

Asphaltum is found in several places in the county, 
At a place six miles west of this town the deposit cov- 
ers 300 acres from two to three feet thick. Also found 
at La Purissima and on the Ventura and Santa Clara 
rivers. Gold is found, of fine quality, at the new 
mines on Firu Creek, where a number of men are now 
at work. These mines are, in fact, the oldest in the 
state, and records are in existence which prove that 
they were successfully worked so long ago as 1841, 
seven or eight years prior to the heralded discovery of 
gold on the coast. 



The impression is prevalent at the East that life and 
property are rendered insecure here by reason of fre- 
quent earthquakes. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. The destruction of life in the whole state can- 
not be compared with that caused by eating hot bread 
and that American compound called pie. Three times 
as many persons died of sunstroke in New York city 
in one day of the present year as have been killed by 
earthquakes in California since the discovery of gold. 
No life has been lost, nor any damage done in this 
county by an earthquake in the last sixty years. The 
danger is overrated by visitors because definite data 
have not been published. No records of seismic dis- 
turbances previous to 1800 have been discovered, and 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 73 



the archives mention only two years between 1800 and 
1850 in which shocks were observed. We give an ex- 
tract or two from an article on " California Earth- 
quakes " in the Atlantic Monthly for March, 1870 • 
'The western slope of the Rocky Mountains,' a more 
important region in point of resources of every descrip- 
tion than any other geographical area on the continent 
is doubtless to bear within a century a greater popula- 
tion than is now held by the whole area of the United 
States. Everyone who feels an intelligent interest in 
the future of our race must be concerned for 'the pros 
pects of this region. Soil, climate, mineral resources, 
relation to other great centres of population, alike 
promise that our children and children's children shall 
find here all the conditions of prosperity which these 
features can afford. » The writer then proceeds to con- 
sider the question of earthquakes as affecting the fu- 
ture resident, giving statistics relative to shocks pre- 
vious to 1866, from papers by Dr. J. B. Trask to 
whom we are indebted for most that is known on this 
subject. The earthquake of 1812 destroyed the Mis- 
sion at Santa Ynez, some fifty miles north of Santa 
Barbara, but the same year brought an even more in- 
tense convulsion to the valley of the Mississippi. 
After that none are recorded until 1850. During the 
sixteen years from 1850 to 1865, inclusive, fifty shocks 
were felt at San Francisco,' ten at Los Angeles, eight 
at San Luis Obispo and only six at Santa Barbara 
Since 1865 two or three slight shocks have been ob- 
served here with the usual result-no damage. Th* 



74 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

conclusion at which the above writer arrives is that " it 
cannot legitimately be concluded from the history of 
that region that the risk is greater than that which is 
incurred by the inhabitants of the banks of the Mis- 
sissippi or the shores of Massachusetts Bay." 



The similarity of these two countries in very many 
respects is wonderful. In Deuteronomy viii:8:9 the 
beautiful land of Judea is described as " a land of 
wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pome- 
granates ; a land of olive oil and honey ; a land where- 
in thou shall eat bread without scarceness ; thou shalt 
not lack anything in it ; a land whose stones are iron 
and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass (copper)." 
This might have a description of California. In Gen- 
esis xxiv:32, Abraham's servant fed his camels "with 
straw and provender (or barley)." In California the 
traveler finds no other " feed." Here too as in Pal- 
estine are the mulberry and cactus, the wild mustard 
and the " water-spouts " of David. " The early and 
latter rain " means little to an Eastern man but a Cab 
ifornian knows the value of spring or autumn rains. 
When the Jewish prophet promises as a blessing to the 
favored people, " The treader of grapes shall overtake 
him that soweth seed " (Amos, ix), and the law says 
u If ve walk in my statutes the vintage shall reach 
unto the sowing time " (Lev. xxvi.), and " the plow- 



GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 75 

man shall overtake the reaper/' the words describe to 
the California!! his most fortunate seasons, however un- 
intelligible they may be at the East. u A sweeping 
rain that leaveth no food " is the too early autumc 
rain which utterly destroys the pastures ; for both in 
Carmei and California the hills are covered with a kind 
of " growing hay, 7 ' a dried grass that is excellent pas- 
ture but is rotted by the first rains. "Though the 
labor of the olive shall fail " (Hab. iii.) is full of force, 
for no tree requires so little labor. These are but a 
beginning of the analogies we might draw, did space 
permit. 



The following vivid description appeared in the 
Overland Monthly, under the heading "On Foot in 
Southern California:" 

" Above El Kincon the narrow belt behind the strand 
widens into a fringe of farms, and the mountains be- 
come more worthy of the' Pacific. There are noble 
fields, yellow with ripened corn ; and brown and russet- 
pastures, running a little way up on the green moun- 
tains, as billows run upon the strand. There are long 
willow hedges ; and skeleton pole-fence : red -wood cot- 
tages among the fig and mulberries ; sweet brooks, let 
down from the mountain glens by live-oak tethers, 
across the drought, and creeping weakly through ebony 
ravines ; wide sandy commons of salted grass, close 



76 GUIDE TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. 

nibbled ; white drifted bulwarks, pierced with em- . 
brasures, and palisaded atop with reed-grass and enor- 
mous rushes ; and great brown fields of clotburrs. 
Elsewhere there are precipitous yellow banks, where 
the blue ocean heaves its white billows in their cease- 
less unrest. On these banks are scattered parks of 
live-oaks, their trunks salted with vapory whiteness, 
and stretching their great pallid arms among the green 
leaves and the pale, pea-green moss, which combs and 
strokes its long tresses in the beauty of the morning, 
before the mirror of the sea. What a softness and 
a mildness these ancient woods put on this Indian sum- 
mer morning ; and the young moss whispers secrets to 
the gallanting breeze. Beneath this umbrageous 
canopy I look down between the giant trunks upon the 
sea, where huge porpoises wallow in the silvery mire 
of the waters, puffing and bellowing in their lazy tum- 
bles. 

" On one side of these ripened farms sleeps the wide 

Pacific, old Peaceful, purring in his dreams ; and on 

the other, the great green and brown mountains ; while 

over all settles down the tender, white-purple haze of 

Italy. 

" Westward from Santa Barbara the coast belt 

widens a little more, and becomes a valley. On the 

outside, along the ocean, there is a graceful ridge, 

dotted with evergreen verdure of the oak ; and through 

the whole length of the valley, bright groves of the 

same alternate with the golden and russet ripeness of 

fields. The very mountains are fruitful with the fat- 



4S*THJ£ TO SANTA BARBARA AND VICINITY. / t 

ness of the valley 5 at their summits they display their 
yellow cores, bursting through rinds of green. All 
that is celebrated in song or story of Thessalian Tern* 
pe, is equaled in this valley of Santa Barbara, Here 
the hand of winter often forgets through all the months 
to strew his frost. Here the swelling roots, giving food 
to man, may be planted and dug in every month of the 
twelve ; and here a fig slip without a root, planted in 
the ground in spring and watered, has borne and ripened 
a fig in autumn. 

"Just below Santa Barbara the king vine of the 
cultivated earth has grown and spread itself like a ban- 
yan tree, yielding so many thousand bunches at a 
picking that I dare not mention the number. Here the 
flocks sometimes forget the times and the seasons ; and 
every month is beautiful with the bleating of lambs. If 
at times the husbandman could wish the summer sun 
might touch his fields more lightly, there comes at 
night a cool, sweet dew from the sea, walking through 
them like a silent Carthusian, and sowing them with 
pearly freshness. Here, within sight of these unfad- 
ing groves, there is perpetual spring. Here is no lan- 
guishing, no lassitude, no appalling earthquake, and, 
I had almost written, no death." 



~^^^£§^*4-t— 



For nice Family Groceries,, go to C, C. Hunt J W 
GrO WITH THE <D!R,0°WT> 

6. C. HUNT, 

DEALER IN 

at 




f if mnemm 

CROCKERY, GLASSWARE, CONFECTIONERY. 

TOBACCO, CIGARS, 
Wood, Willow and Stoneware. 

ALSO, A FULL STOCK OF 

Standard School Books, Stationery, Notions, Etc, 

STATE STREET. 



T. B. CIJELEY, 



AND 

GENERAL AUCTIONEER. 

OFFICE t State Street, between Ortega and Cot*. 



HEAL ESTATE BOUGHT AND SOLD AT AUCTION OR PRI 
VATE SALE. 

Fine assortment of Hair Brushes at Apothecaries 7 Hall. 



Small profits and large sales, is the motto at HuntV. 

LIBRARY BUILDING, 

State Street, - • • SANTA BARBARA. 



THE LIBEARY 

IS IN SUCSISSFUL OPERATION, 

The Latest Publications Being Added as they Appear, 



la connection with the Library, will be found every description of 

Prawino Apparatus, Faints, Prayons, 

And other articles of use and ornament, too numerous to mention. 
Prices as cheap as good articles can be sold for. 

Miss S. A. PLUMMER. 



BLACK HA"*VK: 



Saddle Horses, Buggies and Carriages 

Always in Steadiness, and Furnished on the Most Seasonable Terms. 



PARTICULAR ATTENTION PAID TO STOCK 
PLACED UNDER OUR CHARGE. 

Best Liquors for Medical Use at Apothecaries' Hall, 



Fine Chewing Tobacco at 0. C, Hunt f s, 



MORTIMER COOK, 

ZE5 _£3_ HS4 IKI _h±J _tr& 7 

SANTA BARBARA, CAL. 



Capital, - $40,000 



I am prepared to do all and every business in my 
line ; 



HI 

ON SAN FRANCISCO AND NEW YORK, 

Buy and Sell Greenbacks, 

Purchase County Warrants and Other Local Securities. 

Receive Deposits from Merchants and Other Business Men, 

SUBJECT TO CHECK, 

ISSUE CERTIFICATES OF DEPOSIT, 

And do all Other Business Connected with General Banking. 



Hours, from 9 A. M. to 3 P. M 

Arctic Soda on draught at Apothecaries' Hall. 



Ev»r Good Bargain*?, £<> w> $« C Hunt's. 



F. W. FROST & CO., 

STATE STKEEIT, 

SANTA BARBARA, CAL., 

DEALEK8 TN 

Foreign jaracl Domestic 
Men's, Youths' and Boys' 

GLOTiaziisra-, 

Cents' and Boys' 

f imiiiiiii §§§§», 

HOUSEKEEPING GOODS, 
BOOTS and SHOES 

Totiico Benigno at Apothecaries' Hall. 



For a Good Article, go to C. C. Hunt's, 



<i 

m 

w 
< 

Eh 

<l 

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Genuine Lubin's Extracts at Apothecaries J Hall. 



Full stock of School Books at 0. C. Hunt's 



CALIFORNIA 

IMMIGRANT UNION, 

(ORGANIZED OCTOBER, 1869,) 

For the Purpose of Encouraging Immigration 

FOR THE 

STATE OF CALIFORNIA. 



Immigrants and others desiring reliable information in reference 
Ko Public or Private Lands in California, and the mode of acquiring 
them, can address their communications to the General Agent, or 
apply at the 

Central Office, 316 California St., San Francisco. 

Information can be obtained of the best quality of Farming Lands , 
tn the valleys and foothills, at prices varying from 

$1.59, $2, $2.50, $3 and $5 per Acre 

and upward, on liberal terms — one, two, three, four and live years' 
credit. 

The " Union" takes particular care to inform applicants in regard 
to Government lands and lands belonging to railroad companies. 

The* -Union" is prepared to make the most desirable arrange- 
ments for the settlement of colonies from the States east of the 
Rocky Mountains and from European countries, and to obtain 
cheap transportation for them direct to California. 

Good Farming Lands, in tracts of 5,000 to 50.000 acres, can be ob- 
tained at $1 oO to $2 50 per acre, and on liberal terms. 

New-comers visiting the different counties of California, in search 
of farming or other lands for settlement, will be provided with let- 
ters to agents of the "Union" or other intelligent residents who 
are disposed to favor settlers, from whom such precise information 
as they may need — concerning the quality, values and titles to prop- 
erty in the locality — may be obtained. 

Pamphlets containing reliable information in regard to Califor- 
nia, sent to any part of the United States or Europe, when ordered. 

Information of all kinds, beneficial to Immigrants, respectfully 
solicited, and will be carefully given to new comers upon their ar- 
rival. 

WM. H. MARTIN, General Agent, 

316 California Street, Room JVo» 12, San JFranciaco* 

Largest assortment of Colognes at Apothecaries' Hall. 



For fine Coffee and Tea, go to C. C. HuntV. 



FERNALD & RICHARDS, 

ATTORNEYS and COUNSELORS AT LAW, 

No, & STATE STREET, 

Will practice in all the Courts, State and Federal, in the State of 
California. 

Charles Fbenald. Jaesett T. Richards. 



C. P. TEBBETTS, 

MANUFACTURER OF AND DEALER IN 

ib :r, i c ik: s 

Price S3 per Thousand. 

Office at Residence, Cor. State anil Haley Sts. 



§11 TliHFS 



House, Sign, Carriage and Ornamental 

IP -A. I ItsT TIME Tt . 

draining-, Crlazingy Gilding an^I 
Paper Hanging*. 

ORTEGA. BETWEEN STATE AND CHAP ALA STREETS. 
fi®= Good Work and Promptness. 

Unk Weed, Rheumatic Cure, at Apothecaries' Hall. 



For Yankee Notions, go to C. C. Hunt's, 



M$WJI1<@ IS 



Kg* lis 



mm 



Afttaraey. mi t*mw 



-AND— 



0. S, Commissioner in Bankruptcy, 



SANTA BARBARA, 



Physicians' Prescriptions at Apothecaries ' Hall. 



C. C. Hunt delivers all goods Free of Charge. 

C1IBI DEPOT 



5 

STATE STREET, 

Three doors above Cota, SANTA BARBARA, 

IF YOU WANT 

FRESH CANDIES 

AT SAN FRANCISCO RETAIL PRIOES. 

—ALSO — - 

HUTS, FETJITS, CIGAES AND T0BAC00 

CONSTANTLY ON HAND. 



CAMULOS 

Wines and Brandies 

SOI.I> BY 

Sole Agent, 

STATE STREET, Opposite Wells, Fargo & Co/s, 

SANTA BARBARA. 



Get Chamois Skins at Apothecaries' Hall. 



All kinds of Countrv Produce Bought at C. 0. Htnit'.* 



CRANE & LINCOLN, 






SANTA BARBARA, 

State St., 2il door ISortn of Well*. Fargo * Co- 
Have for sale a large amount of FARMING LANDS In the 
County. Also, TOWN LOTS, improved and unimproved, and 
SUBURBAN Property. 

LOANS negotiated on Real Estate Security, and HOUSED 
RENTED. 



LINCOLN HOUSE. 

THIS 

IS 8TBICTLY 

And by its eligible situation insures to parties tbe full salubrity of 
our climate. 

A* I*. MBTCOWr, Proprietor, 

Santa Barbara. 



Great Variety of Toilet Articles at Apothecaries' Hall 



C. C. Hunt will not be undersold. 



uronnoABiu' uamjl 

Corner State and Ortega Streets, 



This Drug Store was established by the undersigned in 1868, 
who has carried on the business of Druggist off and on in the same 
place /or nearly twenty years, and is consequently well posted m 
the class of medicines most useful in meeting the requirements of 
the climate and diseases of those who. as invalids, usually resort to 
this place for the benefit of their health. 

PHYSICIAITS 

Will find every variety of drug necessary for the compounding of 
their prescriptions, which will be attended to and prepared wit-b 
the same neatness and accuracy to be obtained at the best Eastern 
pharmacies. They will find all the latest preparations in vogue. 
imported from leading English and New York houses. 

LADIES 

Will find a full assortment of Perfumery of the finest and most 
delicate kinds, too numerous to mention. Also, Hair Brushes, 
Tooth Brushes, Soaps, fine Sponges, Nursing Bottles, Breast Pumps'. 
etc., etc. 

Will find the purest preparations of Strychnia and Phosphorus, 
with directions for using the same in the destruction of squirrels, 
gophers, etc. 

PAIIsTTEBS 

Will find every description of Oils, Varnishes, Paints, Grainers' 
Tools, and everything requisite in their line of business. Also. 
Kerosene, Benzine, etc. 

THE PUBLIC GENERALLY 

Will find the most complete assortment of Patent Medicines, 
Shaker Roots, Herbs, etc. ; also, a fine assortment of the best 
Cutlery, Pen Knives, Razors, Scissors, School Books, Blank Books. 
Deeds and Stationery of every description. 

The proprietor takes especial pride in making this the best as- 
sorted Drug Store south of San Francisco, and would beg to eal) 
especial attention to a NEW PATENT BLOOD PURIFIER, com 
pounded by himself from herbs indigenous to the southern portion 
of California, and known as " TONICO BENIGNO." 

BENIONO GUTIERREZ. 



Fine Colognes at Apothecaries Hall. 



Call at C. C. Hunt's Store on State Street. 

J. FRANKLIN WILLIAMS, 

_A. O? T O B UST JE "XT .A. T Xj -A- W 
SANTA BARBARA, CAL. 

OFFICE : On State street, near Carrillo. 



EUCEUE FAWCETT, 

Attorney *4 taw# 

OFFICE : Slate street, west of JVew Hotel. 
Will practice in all the Federal and State Courts. 
JW Loans negotiated without expense to lender. 

HENRY BUCK'S 

FASHIONABLE 

SHAVING AND HAffi-DRESSIN& SALOON, 

STATE STREET, 



C. W. STANLEY, 

Agent for all the San Francisco Daily Papers 

AND 

Dealer in Stationery and Fancy Articles. 

All the Eastern Periodicals furnished on the publishers' terms. 

Best Combs and Brushes at Apothecaries ' Hall. 



For fine Cigars, go to C. C. Hunt's. 



G. W. I. ELAND. E. H. McCULLEY 

LELAND & McCULLEY, 



& ,&z- 



SANTA BARBARA. 

We have for sale a large amount of 

IN THIS COUNTY; ALSO, 

TOWlsT LOTS, 

IMPKOYED AND UNIMPROVED. 

Parties desiring to purchase for homes or for investment, would 
do well to call on or write to us. 

I*oans negotiated ©si Meal Estate Security, Rent* 

Collected, Taxes Paid, and all other things In our 
line. 

COIHsTTY ATJCTIOlvrEBR, 
Special attention given to all consignments. 



Physicians' Prescriptions at Apothecaries' Hall, 



Fine Headless Mackerel at O. C. Hunt's. 

C. SMITH & CO., 

DEALERS IN 

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS, 

STOYES AND HOLLOW WARE, 
PAINTS AND OILS, 

NAILS, IRON AND STEEL, 

PLATED WARE 7 
WOODEN WARE, 

WILLOW WARE, 

CORDAGE, 

GAS FIXTURES, 
Pumps and Piping: of all kinds, 

Bolts and Carpenters 9 Tools, 

Builders' Hardware, 

Window Olass. 



Tinware of Every Description 

MADE AND REPAIRED. 



A large stock of all the above goods kept constantly on hand and 
«old at moderate prices. 

State Street, SANTA BARBARA. 

Look for Curiosities at Apothecaries 1 Hall. 



Groceries at Wholesale and Retail at C. C. Hunt^s. 



MRS. A. W. HICKOK'S 

FASHIONABLE 



STATE STREET, 

Near Corner of Cota, SANTA BARBARA. 



CONSTANTLY ON HAND 

All the Latest and Most Stylish 

41S All 1§IIIM 
Trimmings, Lace, Artificial Flowers, Etc. 



BONNETS AND HATS MADE TO OEDER, 

OR TASTEFULLY TRIMMED AND REFITTED. 



A HANDSOME ASSORTMENT OF 

MILLINEEY GOODS, 

DIRECT FROM THE EAST, AND 

SELECTED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS MARKET, 

CALL, JiJVn 8MB THJEJtt. 

Best Hair Oils at Apothecaries 7 Hall. 



Crockery of all styles at C. C. HuntV 
COR. STATE km HALEY STREETS, 



THIS FIRST-CLASS HOUSE IS 

New and Newly Furnished Throughout 

In a Substantial and Elegant Style. 

. IT OFFERS 

SUPEEIOE ACCOMMODATIONS TO THE TRAVELING PUBLIC. 

'flie Rooms are X-arge 5 

Well Ventilated, and 

Command Beautiful View*. 



FOR THOSE WHO WISH. 

The Table is Furnished with the Best the Market Affords, 

INCLUDING 

TIKE PI1TEST WIlsTES, 

NATIVE AND FOREIGN. 
Carriages at the wharf to meet passengers by steamer, 

JAMES SHAW, Proprietor. 

Everything Warranted at Apothecaries 7 Hall. 



For Stationery of all kmds^ call at C. C. Hunt's. 

P. J. BARBER, 



p 



prepab.es 



DBAWINGS, ELEVATIONS, SPECIFICATIONS 



AND 



■wosiEcrisra- j?'jL>j±?sr& 



For Buildings, public or private, in any style of Architeetur 
Ancient, Mediaeval or Modern. 



« is w i hi a w m m 

Carefully prepared on buildings of any character. 

OFFICE : At Residence, Vine St., Santa Barbara, 

All kinds of Bitters for sale at Apothecaries ' Hall. 



'fhey try to please their customers at C. C. Hunt's. 

WATCHMAKER AND JEWELEE, 

State Street, SAA TA 'SA^BAL^A, 



Clocks, Watches and Chronometers iraeatly cleaned and adjusts. 
Satisfaction guaranteed. 
Liberal discount made to the trade, 

THE STEAMER 

Sails from San Francisco, 

AND TOUCHES AT 

(raviota, Santa Barbara. San Buenaventura & Hneneie 

ABOUT 
AND IS * 

The Only Sterner that Toucks at the Wharf in Santa Barbara, 

For ECONOMY, SAFETY and COMFORT, she is a favorite will 
shippers and travelers. 

OOGDALL, NELSON & PERKINS, 

Agents, cor. Clay and East Streets, San Francisco. 



Physicians 7 Prescriptions at Apothecaries 7 Hall. 



9/' 



CCIDENTAL HOTEL, 

Corner of State and Cota Streets, 

SAls^TA IB .A. IR, IB .A. "J» .A. . 



L. RAFFOUR, - - Proprietor. 



THIS LARGE AND ELEGANT HOTEL 

| Has Just Been Gompleted and Thrown Open to tie Pule, 

AND 

Is Fitted Up with All the Modern Improvements. 

THE 

Rooms are Large, Airy, Light and Pleasant, 

SUPPLIED WITH 

Gas, Water and Open Fires, 

AND 

1 FURNISHED IN WALNUT, WITH THE BEST 
SPRING MATTRESSES. 

The cuisine is managed by French cooks, and the comfort of 
guests is studied in all ways. 

o:e3:^l.:r,3-:es d^eoiidibs^a^tie]- 



LAND F O X£ -A L ES . 
Real Estate Agency. 

Rauclios Ojai, Simi, JLas Posa§, C'alleguas, Canada 

Lar^a, San Francisco aaitt El Riocle Santa 

Clara o La C'olonia, 

Aggregating nearly 250,000 acres, situate in the valley of the Santa 
Clara river, and forming the greater part of the territory segregated 
from Santa Barbara county to create the new county of Ventura, 
are now offered 

For Sale at Prices Ranging from $1 to $20 per Acre. 

The owners have recently received United States Patents for 
these lands, and can give PERFECT TITLES. 



RANCH0 US P0SAS 

Contains 27,000 acres, and has been surveyed into tracts of 160 to 
1,000 acres. We offer to sell to Colonies one-half of this Rancho, 
in alternate farms, at low rates. 

RANGH0 SiMi 

Contains 98,000 acres of GOOD GRAZING AND DAIRY LAND, 
is surveyed into tracts of 4,000 to 16,000 acres, is well watered and 
timbered, and will be sold in quantities to suit purchasers at SI to 
$3 50 per acre. 

RANCHO SAN FRANCISCO 

Contains 48,000 acres, and is situate on the river Santa Clara. The 
lines of the Southern Pacific and Atlantic and Pacific Railroads are 
surveyed through portions of this rancho. It contains a large 
quantity of fine arable bottom lands, is well watered and timbered, 
on the line of travel between Los Angeles and the Cerro Gordo, 
and other interior Mining Districts, and a first-rate property for 
colonists and small farmers. Prices of arable land, £6 to $12 per 
acre ; grazing land, f 1 to $3 50 per acre. 

The other properties consist of FINE AGRICULTURAL LANDS 
improved by good roads, water ditches and artesian wells. 

THE TOWN OF HUENEME 

Is on La Colonia rancho, and is the principal shipping point of the 
whole valley, being connected with San Francisco by a line of 
steamers. 

Prompt attention given to letters of inquiry. 
For further particulars, address 

THOMAS R. BARD, 
Real Estate Agent. Hueneme. Cal. 



JAS. A. BLOOD, Jr., 

Has the LARGEST and BEST stock of 

IN THE COUNTY. 

PARLOR, I^TBR A JE£ Y . 

DINING-ROOM, and CHAMBER SUITS. 

Of Pine, Oak, Walnut, An. 

Bedding, Curtains and Rustic Shades, 
CARPETS, OIL CLOTH AND WALL PAPER. 



XT JST 3D IE IR, TJ± KI I IT <3-, 



In all its branches, a specialty, 



\j n. jEn__ jB 



At the 01:1 Stair 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



005 388 333 3 



DEALER IN 




ilili lllii! iliiiti 



AND 



Igllil §®MlIll#lfi^ 



Groceries, Glassware, 

Provisions, Stoneware, 

Crockery, Tobacco. 



ALSO, 



FINE OLD WHISKIES, BRANDIES, 

WINES, ALE AND PORTER, 

For family and medicinal use. 
STATE STREET. 

S-A.2sTT_A. BABBABA, 0-A.Xi. 



